Hi Barry,

Wow, that takes me back :) Yeah, Marx and Engels are still in my mind, not gods but, flawed angels, from a very different time, and with vastly less experiences of Real Socialism than we can have, and which we should learn from.

Thanks for a brilliant and incisive article. Now wait for the Apologists for Fascism to storm your gates.

Best wishes,

Joe

What a confused jumble.

The first leftists were those who sat on the left side of the French National Constituent Assembly at the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789.
“They wanted wages, prices, and profits to be determined by competition in a free market, and not by government decree. They were pledged to free their economy from government planning, and to remove the government-guaranteed special privileges of guilds, unions, and associations whose members were banded together to use the law to set the price of their labor or capital or product above what it would be in a free market.”
http://mises.org/daily/3425

However Marx cast the issue clearly in terms of the ownership (meaning control) of the means of production. Capitalism means the private, and socialism means the public [translation: State], control of the means of production.

The problem facing the left has always been this. If they go the whole hog, full socialism, than the result will not be the fairer and more productive society they envisage. It will be a totalitarian dictatorship, even characterised by mass starvation. Then the leftists are left either
a) trying to say that’s not “true socialism” when it is exactly the public ownership of the means of production, or
b) trying to say that the miserable results were some kind of strange coincidence, nothing to do with socialisation of the means of production

However if they resile from full socialism, they start from deserting their principles. (For example, if “democracy” votes for non-left values, they are left contradicting themselves, as the left are now in complaining about the West’s invasions of the middle east.)

And then – since respect for private property is anathema – the government has to dictate the terms of whatever activities it decides to control. The result is a system in which nominally private ownership is permitted, subject to the government’s overriding right to dictate conditions of supply, price, demand, wages, interest, profit, money, credit, banking.

The resulting national socialism is the picture of fascism with its characteristic of government in bed with big business.

(cont.)

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."
Adolf Hitler
Speech of May 1, 1927
http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/

Yet in the confusion that Barry York has displayed so well, the leftists keep not understanding that if you’re not going to have full socialism, and you’re not going to have a voluntary private property society – capitalism – then the left will be the main vector of fascism in the world, because the only possibility left will be government getting into bed with big business.

Look at the left wing parties today, in the name of global warming, all urging governments to take trillions of dollars from the ordinary working people, and give it to the big banks and big business in corrupt government-picking-favourites deals. The left! Do you agree with this, Barry, or not?

So the left keeps ending up doing the opposite of what self-identify as doing, keep favouring the powerful against the weak, favouring exploitation, and they keep not identifying with the results they are getting, and keep assuming it’s got nothing to do with the socialisation of the means of production.

So let’s cut to the chase Barry. What exactly do you stand for, if it’s not government control of the means of production?

If it is, why not full socialism?

If it’s not, why doesn’t that mean you’re wrong, contradicting yourself, confused about the nature of the State, ignorant about the economic phenomena you're talking about, and still making exactly the same mistakes that caused the left to give rise to communism and fascism?

I am a moderate "leftist" from way back. I marched in protest against the American war on the people of Vietnam. I never had any time for any of the usual Marxist-Leninist-Maoist crapp.
Meanwhile I have a great deal of sympathy with most of what is featured on this website: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com
And all of the people and outfits that are listed here:
http://www.dabase.org/GCF.htm

Yes JKJ. Sob.
Well argued, what we and the world needs now, is cooperative capitalism comrade!
Sob, Rhrosty

Hi Rhosty,

My grand-dad was a Wobbly, and my parents in the old CPA. So all that was literally in my mother's milk. I went Maoist in 1962-1963, and didn't move away from it until about 1983, after reading about Mao's murder of Lin Piao, and China's support for Pol Pot's fascism.

Since 1917, we've all had an enormous body of experience to go on, we can't ignore it. We now know how quickly 'real socialism' slides into fascism, how quickly scum move into the party and take it over right to the top: a fish rots from the head, an old Russian proverb says. Yes indeed.

All Utopias. all Grand Theories of Good Societies, with their ready-made prescriptive pathways, seem to degenerate into fascism: ghastly societies in which all dissenting individuals, and all putatively-dissenting groups, like Jews and other minorities, are suspect and eventually have to be 'detached'.

So Utopias all seem destined to become uni-ethnic, dominant-ethnic, well as one-belief societies, once the potentially dissenting groups have been stripped out. Hence, the convergence of 'socialism' and fascism.

Hence, their inevitable self-destruction.

I've been toying with the suspicion that even Marx was hankering for a sort of Fairy-land, a return to a mythical Golden Age, pre-democratic, and for all his praise of its role, pre-capitalist as well. Maybe this explains the attraction for the current pseudo-Left of ISIS' fascism, a strong and certain dictatorship, something they could pledge total allegiance to, to surrender to, to avoid all the uncertainties and 'imperfections' of democracy, and its ever-unfinished nature.

So ISIS promises heaven (and 72 virgins) for martyrs, while the pseudo-left craves the promise of heaven on earth, at any cost, even if they have to ally themselves with rabid anti-humans like ISIS. And with their usual arrogance, the pseudo-left thinks it can eventually manipulate groups like ISIS, once they have gained more successes.

Democracy, uncertainty, imperfection, muddling through, no 'historical inevitability' - that's the uneven and cluttered - post-Enlightenment - path towards the future, which we never reach. Utopias will always betray their 'progressive' claims and turn into their opposites.

Joe

JKJ, Cognitive dissonance can express itself in a belief that something is 'confused jumble'. Like most people, and all the media, you are accustomed to the pseudo-left being regarded as a genuine left. This is what my blog, C21st Left, seeks to challenge.

Regarding ownership or control of means of production, capitalism only means the 'private' in the sense of monopoly and duopoly ownership of the key economic sectors and the crushing of competition. Social ownership of socially produced wealth, based on a decentralised workplace democratic system with a multi-party competitive electoral system, is socialism for this century. You are setting up a redundant and out of date 'model' in order to shoot it down.

I'm a Leftist and I'm all for 'western' intervention on the side of the oppressed in the Middle East, and have been since the Iraq War. The pseudo-left oppose it, but they are knee-jerk anti-Americans with little to no grasp of Marxism or dialectical thinking. Just another form of religious dogmatic thinking.

(cont) reply to JKJ. Hitler was a National Socialist and the most vicious anti-communist of the first half of the C20th. His first custom-made concentration camp, Dachau, was mainly for the communists. National Socialism is not socialism at all, but a ploy to win over disgruntled sectors of the population, such as the unemployed, lest they become attracted to real socialism. Hitler's economy was essentially a tightly regulated state capitalist economy in which the capitalist class was rescued from overthrow.

I know of no left-wing parties that take the absurd position on global warming that you describe. I know of Green parties that do that (and they actually have much in common philosophically with Hitler, as anyone who has read Mein Kampf will know). Also, there are pseudo-left parties like that. But a left-wing party influenced by Marxism will support the unleashing of the productive forces. That's Marxism 101. And it would perhaps mean moving to nuclear power as an intermediate measure while demanding greater investment in R&D into nuclear fusion (as part of the ITER project).

Not many words left but what I stand for is basically the extension of democracy into the social and economic realms, which means social wealth belonging to those who produce it rather than the irrelevant less-than-one-percent who happen to exploit productive labour through ownership of the means of production. No, I do not support a one-party state and, yes, there's no reason why this can't happen with a multi-party competitive electoral system, including parties that will support the old order.

In the meantime, with my feet firmly on the ground, I'll be happy if I can help differentiate the pseudo's from the real thing.

Hi loudmouth; there is much in what you say!
However, I'm not advocating a utopia, nor permanently populated dream castles in the clouds, just cooperative capitalism as a preferred, private ownership, free market model.
A number of points; co-ops were the only capitalist free market model, to survive the Great Depression, largely intact!
They rarely if ever, get too big to fail! I can't find as much as a single example.
They produce few hangers on or unproductive parasites, which hate them much more than communism or socialism, which are all tossed into that much reviled basket, by the elitist exploiters and other extremely privileged drones, who wouldn't couldn't work in an iron lung, let alone do what they expect of others, often much brighter, more enterprisinhg people than they are!.
Plus a few self made men, (portly posers) born in the log cabins they carved from the woods, with their own bare hands!
I remember a reportedly true story about a Brazilian billionaire, forced to the brink of bankruptcy, by his gold digging unscrupulous partners, and a parasitical bank, eager to carve off its pound of flesh.
The Brazilian turned the tables on this motley crew, by signing over the majority, controlling ownership of the manufacturing plant and property, to his most loyal staff.
As a staff owned enterprise, they cleaned out the drones and embarked on a mission to acquire more customers, with extremely competitive pricing/direct, [eliminate the profit demanding middleman,] sales?
And in a nutshell, not only rescued the business, but created a massive turnaround.
As part of their deserved reward, they created a staff owned housing cooperative, a school, a creche and a hospital?
They also set their own salaries, which were invariably, a lot less than the management committee, would entertain!
That former billionaire, is reportedly, still a very rich man, thanks to the 10% interest he maintained, and now tours the world, chasing the sun and golf tournaments; and has never been happier.
It's not utopia, nor drone supporting state ownership, I'm advocating, just applied, evidence supported, practical pragmatism.
Cheers, Rhrosty.

"Cognitive dissonance can express itself in a belief that something is 'confused jumble'."

Notice how, when a leftist is challenged, his first response is a descent straight-into mind-reading = ad hominem? The implication is that, if I challenge him, I must have a psychological/perception problem.

And notice how Barry didn't answer my questions which cut to the chase?

"I'll be happy if I can help differentiate the pseudo's from the real thing."

Good, thanks, I appreciate that.

Please answer these questions.

1. Do you support the full socialisation of the means of production, and if not, why not?

2. If not, then why does that not mean that you support crony capitalism, in other words, the economic policy of fascism? How do you avoid that conclusion if you don't agree with full socialism, don't agree with a voluntary society, and believe the role of government is to permit private ownership, subject to whatever conditions the government chooses to impose on anything?

A well reasoned and timely article by Barry York. The Left is very much in decline among thinking people in the west. The left has been very successful in portraying itself as the "progressive" and "intelligent" side of politics to young people. The problem for the Left is that young people get older and wiser sooner or later, and they begin to figure out that they are being conned.

It is alright running around denouncing "the establishment" and sneering at societies laws when you have no responsibilities yourself. But reality bites when the result of some frenzied sexual activity produces an unplanned offspring. The huge responsibility of inculcating pro social values into a new person to make them productive and accepted citizens usually cures most Leftists of their characteristic sneering contempt for all authority.

The problem for the Left is something akin to the tobacco companies problem, who realised that their very survival depended entirely upon marketing their product to adolescents and teenagers through "youth media." But whereas the tobacco companies could rely upon addiction to their product to maintain their market share, the Left knows that it's hold on most youth has a use by date, and it is entirely dependent upon continuing to corrupt every generation of young people before they grow out of their youthful naivety.

Of course, the Left is looking for other sources to create a new support base. Thus they are championing refugees, non western immigration, and recently denouncing Israel to get the Arab vote. The Left is smart enough to figure out that western voting demographics are changing, and appealing to the resentments and aspirations of the ever growing numbers of non western people now inhabiting western societies is the way to go. This is why they are supporting restrictions on freedom of speech through 18C. which traditionally as "progressives" they are supposed to be opposing.

It just goes to show that for all their finger wagging, leftists are just as adept at foregoing their principles to get votes as the right wing parties are.

JKJ, I apologise to you for the ad hominem implication. It was not intended that way, though I do see how you could take it that way. I find that what I regard as a pseudo-left has been so promoted by media as a genuine left - THE left - that I am sometimes accused of confusion because I do not fit the pseudo-left, nor the conservative Right, categories.

I felt that I had replied on socialisation but clearly not to your satisfaction. I said: "What I stand for is basically the extension of democracy into the social and economic realms, which means social wealth belonging to those who produce it rather than the irrelevant less-than-one-percent who happen to exploit productive labour through ownership of the means of production".

Is this what you mean by socialisation? If so, yes, I support it - but with the vitally important rider that, to me, it must not be a top-down process. That is why I added the bit about competitive multi-party democracy. I believe there has been historical experience, albeit limited, to show that workplace democracy can be real and work at a grass-roots level. I'm not an anarchist and also support government along parliamentary lines.

There is a very good site by economist David McMullen that delves deeper in 'social ownership' or what you call 'socialisation'. http://economsoc.wordpress.com/

I'm all for private ownership of things privately produced but not for the kind of private ownership of things produced socially that occurs under capitalism, which is based on concentrated private ownership.

Wow, a conversation between Rhrosty and Bigmouth, oh what joy and excitement.

Surely, we will soon witness new heights of intellectual excellence and creative thought not achieved since the Golden Age of Greece ended and all of it couched in language that would rival Shakespeare himself.

Gather around, folks, watch the fireworks as these two boring, deeply-in-love-with-themselves pedestrian hacks try to outdo each other.

Yawn, zzzzzzzzz.

Hi David,

You can join in, if you ever have anything to say :)

I suppose some of us who have been through the process, have hopes that young people like you can, while you're a completely blank slate, avoid wasting your time on beliefs that have more in common with religion than reality.

Maybe the lesson has been: always work with realities, no matter how awkward they may be, rather than pig-ignorant beliefs, no matter how comfortable they may be. Reality always wins out, it's always there, it always has to be dealt with.

Or, of course, you can retreat into religion, although it may take you many years - many wasted years - to realise that that's what it is.

Good luck, David.

Joe

Bigmouth enters the arena inviting me to embrace religion. I rejected religion many decades ago, in my teenage years in fact, which even a cursory examination of my blog (which I have run successfully for more than a decade) would reveal.

Regarding his 'young people' jibe, I am 75 years of age and find his silly attempts to discredit me about what one would expect from a man who is clearly brain-dead and infantile and is a man who has to rely upon lies, make-believe, insults and put-downs, to hide his own intellectual and moral vacuum.

P.S. Let me point out at this point in time that I have no wish to waste the time of anyone on OLO with arguing with bottom-feeders like Rhrosty or BigMouth or Jardine, but I've had enough of their concerted attempt to defame me and ridicule everything I say.

I have high quality University qualifications and have had a successful career as a journalist and author and will back myself against the likes of them anytime.

Age shall not weary them!

Byork

It sounds totally confused to me, but I would appreciate it if you could show me that it's not.

What would be an example of "things privately produced but not the kind of private ownership of things produced socially that occurs under capitalism"?

Great article. Just a few thoughts very much in line with what you are saying.

Rebels need to be strong supporters of democracy and human progress. In Australia this means among other things:

- opposing the anti-terrorism laws
- demanding increased Australian military involvement in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and supporting democratic revolution generally.
- opposing the mistreatment of asylum seekers in the name of deterrence.
- supporting greatly increased government funding of scientific research and development
- supporting the modern technologies that the greens oppose and that promise future prosperity.
- supporting genuine economic development in poor countries rather than the "sustainable" green stuff. In Africa this means, among other things, lots of sealed roads with trucks driving up and down delivering fertilizer. Bill Gates' spending on development projects seems to be pointing in the right direction.

Hi David,

No, you didn't. You'll learn that, you've still got time :)

Perhaps we could both do without the insults. I'm sure we both have much experience and held out high hopes for many 'gods'. My point is that all socialist systems to date have degenerated into state-Mafia systems - Russia, China, you name it. not one supposedly-Socialist system has survived reality. The crap has invariably come to the top - Stalin (who I was named after), Mao, Pol Pot, the Kims, perhaps even in Vietnam although I would hate to admit it.

One problem with Utopias is precisely that they prescribe the Good lie, which on the one hand has no room for anybody sho wants a 'Better Life', and on the other hand, allows 'leaders' to totally dominate.

We're roughly the same age, it seems, so we've interpreted all that rich experience differently. I made the mistake of reading Isaiah Berlin and Karl Popper, and that did it for me. I'm convinced now that there never will be a Utopia, people have too much sense and also too much variability to go along with the notion of the One Good Society - even in its horrifically-warped versions such as Islamism, but they all seem to merge with Fascism. They inevitably end up as brutal dictatorships.

Certainly they winkle out people with authoritarian personalities- maybe that's why so many on the pseudo-Left have gravitated to supporting Assad's dictatorship (and maybe Saddam's earlier, and probably Mugabe's too) and ISIS - somehow both at once. Amazing.

Public ownership of the means of production hasn't worked. I wish it had, but no. It always hands power to the Party officials, while the workers are as ground down as they would be in the worst capitalist environment. Perhaps you've never been a worker, so that wouldn't mean much to you.

Best wishes for your awakening,

Joe

JKJ, An example of private production is anything made by an individual. Not much of that around but I suppose one could look to examples in the arts and crafts. Nearly everything of importance to our lives, our subsistence and our dreams, involves cooperative, or social production. Yet these social forces of production are also held back by the concentrated private ownership of the means of production. On one hand, social production; on the other private appropriation.

Can't help yourself, can you Joe? Perhaps I've never been a worker, you say in an attempted put-down.

I was an apprentice and did my time in carpentry and ended up with a Clerk of Works Certificate before I ended up doing the Leaving Certificate and gaining entrance to Sydney University.

So don't tell me about being a worker, Joe. My back still has problems.

Dear Barry,

<<JKJ, An example of private production is anything made by an individual. Not much of that around but I suppose one could look to examples in the arts and crafts.>>

So all that's left is some pittance which one cannot eat and doesn't stop the cold.

<<Nearly everything of importance to our lives, our subsistence and our dreams, involves cooperative, or social production.>>

As a side remark, the most important things are spiritual, needing no society or production, but let that aside (well you did mention "Nearly").

While some form of social cooperation is needed for subsistence, there is no need to get ALL people involved. Your theory seem to be black-and-white: either it's an individual or it's at least the whole state, if not the whole world, nothing in between.

Those items that are needed for subsistence and even for modest dreams, though they can rarely be produced by individual Robinson Crusoes, they can be produced by small-to-medium groups such as the family, including the extended family or the local tribe, or any other group of people that cooperate voluntarily.

The problem with progressives, is that their dreams are so big that they require the cooperation of extremely larger groups - which necessarily must include individuals and smaller groups that do not share those dreams and thus do not wish to become part of the larger group.

The typical progressive wants what they want so much that they are willing to use force to get others who do not share their dream to cooperate anyway. They then try to justify that by claiming that they "save those primitives from not knowing what's good for them".

My question to you is therefore:

As you are willing to extend private ownership to individuals over what they produce privately, are you willing to similarly extend group ownership over their own produce to small-to-medium groups which do not wish to become part of larger groups (such as states) or share your own dreams?

To Loudmouth. Your last two posts directed at David G were excellent. Although I disagree with your attitudes to insults. Whereas reading nothing but insults is dreary and accomplishes nothing, a few well directed and witty insults make for great entertainment.

It looks like David G is an old time true Believer dinosaur, like my old uncle Norm. I presume that he is still in shock after watching the Berlin Wall come down and the East Euros toss the statues of Marx "on the dustbin of history."

To David G.

I am insulted that you did not include me in your list of "bottom feeders" who oppose your religious faith in socialism. Take this, vartlet (smack!). And this, thou Satansquire (smack!)

Hi Yuyustu, I like Marxism because it proceeds from reality: analysis of the actual social relations defining a society at a particular historical stage of development. The reality in capitalist society is that food production and distribution are both 'mass' or social in the way they are done. This is one of the achievements of capitalism since the C19th. Very few people rely on growing their own food in the developed industrial countries. The same applies to 'shelter' - residential developments are generally large-scale and cannot happen without the coordinated labour of hundreds, if not thousands, of workers. This mode of production explains why many more people have adequate shelter today than a century ago. Production based on family and other small to medium groups was overturned by the rise of capitalism and the factory system. Engels once remarked that, in the manorial-feudal system, individuals may have had healthier environments but they were also close to brain dead (because their horizons and choices were so constrained by the need to remain in their village). I share this view, but I take it you would disagree. Fair enough, but in terms of defining a genuine left-wing outlook I do not see how going back to a previous time is progressive or in the interests of people in the C21st, especially our two billion brothers and sisters in pre-industrial societies who go to bed hungry each night and do not have access to clean water. I don't think it is realistic or desirable to go back to small-group production. Socialism, by contrast, is realistic because the basis for it already exists within the contradictions of capitalism: social cooperative labour. It is desirable too, because social production freed from the rationale of the motive of maximizing private profit can then be geared to social need - and fun and fantasy! (It is the C21st after all).

Hi LEGO,

You're welcome to join us ex-Left bottom-feeders any time, there's plenty of us down here :)

Barry,

Yes, the basis for socialism may exist but along with the "contradictions of capitalism" I look forward, one day, to a thorough analysis of the "contradictions of socialist production" as well. Has it worked anywhere ? Algerian and Yugoslav workers' co-operatives ? Soviet collective farms ? Chinese communes ? Pol Pot's 'work brigades' ? Mengistu's forced collectives in Ethiopia ? Even Nyerere's vijijini program ? No, nowhere. What's working in, say, Vietnam ? Pure capitalism and nothing but.

So let's put failures behind us and move on. Capitalism has its obvious inequities, but it's not either/or: if anything, the dilemma is to either find a third alternative (like Giddens' Third Way ? I don't think so), or while we are waiting for the next Marx, do whatever we can to minimise the faults of capitalism and ameliorate its effects, incrementally if necessary.

And after all, if workers' co-operatives could ever work, what's to stop workers even here in Australia from coming together and forming one ? It's not illegal, and I don't think Australia's capitalists would feel threatened in the slightest.

Ah yes, they've been tried here already: co-operative farming communities up on the Murray here in SA, in the first decades of the twentieth century under the first Labour government in the world, Tom Price's. All went bust within a few years. They appeared to have their own peculiar "contradictions".

Back to the drawing boards ?

Best wishes.

Joe

byork
"An example of private production is anything made by an individual."

Well everything's made by an individual, isn't it?

JKJ, definitely not! Not since the Industrial Revolution. Nearly everything is made by cooperative effort of many workers - social labour - be it on a production line or through a coordinated series of teams, each producing components that eventually are manufactured into the finished product.

I'm only trying to find out what would be an example of something that was "things privately produced but not the kind of private ownership of things produced socially that occurs under capitalism"?

Even if someone made a meal or a chair at home, wouldn't they always be involved in making "things produced socially" because of the inputs or materials produced by other people?

A few thoughts on social versus private production

It is a bit of a continuum. An example of really private individual production would be a hunter who makes and uses his own spear. No one else contributes to the production of the spear. The hunter makes his own cutting tool and collects the tree branch and then proceeds to fashion the spear. Although it should be pointed out that the game caught with the spear are shared with members of a family unit who in turn provide fruit or what have you. Furthermore, it was quite common for hunters to rely on stones traded with other regions because of the lack of suitable local ones.

An individual or private production process can produce for individual use or for trade. The producer can produce all the inputs they need or they can rely to some extent on inputs purchased from other producers. Where producers are buying and selling on the market we are seeing a division of labor and production at the social level. Each individual is relying on others. They are no longer a single operation.

The next stage is when each production process is highly social so that individuals tend not to be able to say they as individuals produced anything on their own. At most a machine operator could say they produced a particular component But generally people just contribute to a process. What is important here is that if the means of production are taken from the capitalist they cannot be handed back to individual workers like hand tools could. They can only be owned by the workers collectively

Here are some thoughts on social ownership of the means of production that help to distinguish it from mere state ownership.

Social ownership requires a perfectly achievable change in "human nature" based on new conditions that both require and encourage new behaviour. The carrot and stick of the market place is replaced by work being its own reward. Work becomes a satisfying and self-affirming activity and each of us contributes their best efforts to achieving good economic outcomes. Work and our relations with others are no longer at odds with our wellbeing and there is a general culture of mutuality where we do the right thing in the knowledge that others are doing likewise. An important negative feedback mechanism in this new culture will be that the majority will nip negative behavior in the bud rather than run away from it as they do at the moment.

Reaching this new stage of human development will of course requre quite a struggle. Initially the revolutionary order cannot do without the old business types and they would be keen to entrench themselves and the old ways of doing things. They would be joined (or replaced) by revolutionary leaders who were always just careerists or have acquired a taste for bossing or simply decided the masses could not be relied on. Balancing this must be a revolutionary movement of the masses that resists these "capitalist roaders" while transforming themselves and the way things are done.

The balance of forces in the case of the 20th century revolutions in places like Russia and China was decidedly unfavorable to such a transformation. They were in very backward countries. There was little or no modern economy nor a large, modern and educated working class ready and keen to revolutionize the way they work and produce. Instead you had peasants toiling in the fields, on construction sites or in front of machine tools, where cadres had to decide everything.

A response to Jardine K. Jardine

If someone makes something for their own use with inputs they have purchased, that is not a social production, it is personal consumption. This could be a chair made with purchased tools and timber or a meal prepared from ingredients purchased at the grocer.

Where people in a socialist society wish to engage in domestic individual production for the market place this can be a problem because market relations engender capitalism. It can be temporarily tolerated, restricted or prohibited. Ultimately, socialist relations would win out because (1) large scale production with inputs the individual cannot afford will provide a cheaper and better product or (2) the individual would be happier using socially supplied facilities and simply earning a wage.

Dear Barry,

I understand that you like Marxism.
I also can name a few ideas that I like,
but I don't force them down the throats of others and wouldn't consider so even if I had the power.

I believe your sincerity when you claim that Marxism proceeds from reality, but "what is reality" is an enormous topic, which we had many discussions over, here in OLO, and one that we still dispute.
What if, after many attempts, you still fail for whatever reason(s) to convince some others that your idea of "reality" IS the correct representation of reality? Would you be right to enforce the consequences of your understanding of reality on others whom you believe "fail" to see it?

As for the opposing ideas of "progress" and "regress", they are of course relative to where one wishes to go, so assuming that our nature is inherently good, they depend on our specific values of what "goodness" is. It seems that you consider "mastery of nature" and "unleashing productive forces" as "good". I don't share those values. Rather, I consider "goodness" to consist of mastering from within one's own human nature and overcoming the productive tyranny of our genes. Similarly, I don't share your values of "internationalism" and "democracy" and even my reasons for disliking capitalism are different to yours.

Now we may debate differing values ad nauseam, and indeed you attempt to present the merits of yours, but you still haven't answered my previous question: suppose you fail to convince others of your values and for example they instead prefer to operate independently in small-to-medium groups: are you going to force them to cooperate against their will with your mega-society? If so, can you justify that?

My dreams and my happiness only require a small group of people around me who share a similar outlook. Yours OTOH, require *everyone*'s cooperation, including myself. You cannot find your materialistic happiness unless I also cooperate with you, but then, as a slave to dreams I do not share, I would be denied my own dreams and spiritual happiness.

What a conflict!

Yuyutsu, I am not forcing my ideas down anyone's throat - just presenting a case. As I do have democratic values, then I say it will be up to the people to decide on how they live, once we move beyond the retarded zombie system of capitalism. I really can't see many people wanting to go backwards.

The great moral issue of our time is the alleviation from poverty of two billion fellow humans. Reality, for them, is not an abstract debating question.

The only compulsion I believe in is the overthrow of the 'dictatorship' of the less-than-one-percent whose ownership of means of production holds back progress and restricts greater choice on the part of individuals. I have known groups in the 1960s and early 1970s who set up communes in rural Australia. They were funded by government payments or allowances from affluent parents, which I found strange and alienating. I would never deny their right to do that, in a self-sufficient way, however.

So, you will be able to grow your own veggies and I'll be able to take holidays to the Moon and beyond.

But progress cannot be reversed. Things cannot go back to how they once were

Byork
Even if someone made a meal or a chair at home, wouldn't they always be involved in making "things produced socially" because of the inputs produced by other people?

David
“If someone makes something for their own use with inputs they have purchased, that is not a social production, it is personal consumption.”

1. Not according to Barry, because capitalists purchase inputs, and this makes the resulting product “social wealth”. So can you sort out with Barry whether you or he is wrong on this point, and then get back to us on that?

2. What if they didn’t make it for their own use, but for someone else? Would that be private production or social wealth?

Barry? Can you answer those questions too please?

JKJ, you are misrepresenting me, so I feel no need to respond. Nowhere did I say that capitalists purchase inputs. They appropriate socially produced wealth.

Why is it a "misrepresentation" to say that capitalists purchase inputs? Do you deny that they do? How do they "appropriate socially produced wealth" (as distinct from what kind of wealth?), if not by purchasing it?

You still haven't been able to figure out whether something is social wealth or not, and since your entire theory depends on it, you are floundering in self-contradiction before you can even get to square one.

Even if someone made a meal or a chair at home, wouldn't they always be involved in making "things produced socially" because of the inputs produced by other people?

Yes, I wonder endlessly how many angels can stand on the point of a pin ?

Socialism has been tried, there are hundreds of years of its experience now, and it has failed. In 2014, we have had vastly more experience of it than Orwell or Koestler or so many others, and again and again it has failed.

(1) Not necessarily because it is inherently flawed theoretically, but because schemers and scum have crawled into its machinery and taken it over from inside: party hacks and careerists have quickly seen opportunities for personal power and taken them.

(2) As well, because a multitude of people have honestly differing points of view, they don't agree with the Party directives [see (1)] and therefore may have to be 'detached'. It's also called individuality. So, regrettably, the executioners.

No Utopia can encompass all of the aspirations, honest and genuine aspirations, of an entire population, and so it can't predict the future, not for a second. People differ in their opinions and aspirations. No two people on OLO agree completely about everything, so why expect entire populations ? So, regrettably, the executioners. And if gulags and laogai, then socialism has failed.

We got it wrong. So where do we go from here ?

It does seem to come down to dictatorship, even with its perfectly prescribed Book of Utopia (and, regrettably, the executioners), or democracy with all its uncertainties and imperfections, a sort of permanent work in progress.

So do we yearn for a retreat to a perfect Golden Age Utopia (perhaps we should leave that to ISIS and its hangers-on, even on the 'Left'), or deal with the real world with all its defects ?

New ball game, folks :)

Joe

Yuyutsu

I think it is inevitable that after a socialist revolution, a large minority will be opposed to it. Except perhaps during some temporary transition period, they will not be permitted to set up capitalist enterprises. They will lose their wealth and would not be given access to finance. Even attempts by individuals to pool their savings and issue shares or loans would need to be discouraged and we would certainly not provide the legal framework that private businesses require.

This may be seen as restricting people's options but if the social revolution is ultimately successful there will be no one around who wants to be a capitalist or an employee of a capitalist. The new arrangements will be freer and more productive.

It is a bit like the way that nobody wants to go back to feudalism. I think people prefer to be capitalists rather than barons and anyway they would have trouble finding willing serfs, and kidnapping people for the purpose would be illegal.

Dear David,

After a socialist revolution, I would regret that ebola hasn't taken me earlier: even declaring that "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger" is a more humane option.

In fact, even feudalism, though far from ideal, would be more humane and many, myself included, would rather become the serfs of one baron than the serfs of a socialist regime. Under a feudal baron we would have to work hard all day, but at least the night would be ours to sleep with a clear head.

The opposite of socialism is not capitalism: the opposite of socialism is freedom from society.

In fact, capitalism and socialism are close siblings, children of greed and materialism. Capitalism was merely a tragic accident that occurred on the West's road to freedom, where greed met the false lights of "progress", hijacked the budding process and took mankind from one form of slavery to another. Now you offer me a third variation on slavery: thanks, but no thanks!

Dear Barry,

I acknowledge that at least your version of socialism, or social-democracy, is more humane then David's.

In fact, this version is essentially with us already - not through revolution, but has quietly crawled on us.
You may not agree, considering the difference huge, but as I see it, all the changes you suggest are only minor peripheral tweaking which matters little to most ordinary people.

Both the current system and yours:

- have progress and economic growth in mind.
- have a global outlook.
- are human-centred.
- legitimise the huge territorial state and its right to control the lives of everyone within a huge given area for no other reason than they happen to live there.
- hail the fig-leaf of democracy, whereby a majority of some arbitrary group of people whom you don't know and probably never accepted or identified with, has the power to dictate how you live your life.

Having claimed yourself that "progress cannot be reversed", why punish irreversibly those poor two billion fellow humans, replacing their innocent-poverty with the anguish of spiralling material desires?

Yuyustu, By your own logic, the two billion of our fellow human beings who live in acute poverty should have the freedom to decide whether they want your version of "innocent-poverty" or what you describe as "the anguish of spiralling material desire" (and what I would call the noble goal of 'Abundance for all!')

You have quite a nerve. Presumably you are not one of the starving, you have secure shelter, and your life expectancy will be the same as others lucky enough to live in advanced industrial societies.

As for your attempt to portray me as a social-democrat - 'thanks' but no thanks. The absence of real progress and economic growth are a major reason why I think capitalism in the developed world is reactionary and needs overthrowing. So no comparison there.

A 'global outlook'? Well, yes, you're right to an extent there - except for those insular national capitalists like Dick Smith who believe in protectionism.

Human-centred? Yes, guilty as charged. But can it be said that capitalism is really human-centred? Does it encourage or constrain our growth as individuals? Or to put it another way: ever been a wage-slave?

The point about the "territorial state" cannot apply to me, as I'm for 'open borders'. I even reckon that there's no such thing as a 'foreign worker'; yet another thing putting me at odds with the pseudo-left.

As for democracy, it's not perfect but infinitely better than dictatorship. I want it extended in ways that social-democrats don't.

Hi Barry,

Capitalism needs overthrowing to be replaced with what ? Social fascism, dressed up as 'socialism' ? Do you think anybody is ever going to fall for that again ?

No. Once this current war against Islamo-fascism has been fought and hopefully won (that's not a foregone conclusion) hopefully we can get back to trying to ameliorate (yawn ! how boring ! how un-revolutionary !) the negative impacts of capitalism. I don't see any other pathways to the future.

Sorry.

Joe

Dear Barry,

As you claim that you are not a social-democrat (socialist-yes, democrat-yes, but somehow not the combination), then I am more than interested to learn about the differences between your ideas and theirs, particularly in the areas that matter to me - who knows, perhaps your system is relatively better than the corruption we experience today...

But please bear with me, because your article addresses a different audience, which sees the world from an industrial Western perspective, thus it doesn't address my questions and concerns at all.

Whether production, for example, is concentrated in the hands of a few capitalist pigs, or in the hands of government - or as we have it now, in the hands of the collusion of both, makes little difference to me because the basic assumption is the same: that more and centralised production is good.

You support open borders - God bless you for that, but does it mean that the already gigantic state is going to be even bigger and encompass the whole world? Today, if one can no longer bear the oppression of their own state, then they can at least try to immigrate to another (I did just that myself), but if the whole world becomes one country - then where could one run away to?

Democracy versus dictatorship pertains to the details of how a particular society is organised from within, which only matters once an individual willingly accepted to be a member of that society. Enforcing membership and the values of a society on the unwilling is always a dictatorship, even if one gets a symbolic vote.

As silly as I think it is, I have no right to ask you to refrain from your dream of holidaying in the moon and beyond. If you want my cooperation and support, then you need to demonstrate to me that similarly, as much as perhaps you consider my own dreams as silly, your system will not stand in my way either.

(continued...)

(...continued)

What I am asking is for freedom from society.

This doesn't mean that one must live alone, nor does it mean that one may live on the fringe of societies and suck their goods and services: it plainly means that association with others must be voluntary, that one should be allowed to freely choose whom they associate with, obviously through mutual agreement - and that one should similarly be allowed to choose whom they don't want to be bothered by.

I am asking for tolerance to smaller groups or societies, of any number, even if they do not share the goals and values of broader society, such as increasing production, science and economic activity; prosperity; education; democracy; or internationalism. I am asking that such smaller societies be left in peace and not be made subject to the laws of broader society which do not reflect their values. I am also asking that the fruits of their labour not be confiscated in the pursuit of goals they do not share, such as holidaying the moon and beyond.

Note, however, that I am not asking for the ridiculous, that broader society should refrain from protecting itself from smaller rogue societies. Of course it should do what is reasonably necessary, but it should do so as honest self-defence rather than under the pretext of keeping the law.

Am I asking too much? Is what I'm asking for compatible with your ideals?

---

Industrialisation indeed often prolongs life expectancy, provides a secure shelter and prevents physical hunger, but it comes at a heavy spiritual price. You said that it's irreversible and I agree that it's extremely difficult to reverse, once the addiction to comfort has set in. Never mind crying over spilt milk, but it is my wish at least to stop and freeze the level of industrialisation at that which we are used to, then lean in the direction of taking it back, but extremely slowly and gradually as it should be exciting rather than painful.

byork
So you're going to cure poverty by mass starvation?

How stupid would someone have to be, to think that the famines and economic collapse that happened under (attempts to implement) socialism are all just some kind of strange coincidence?

That's what you think, isn't it? Barry? They're all just some strange coincidence, and had nothing to do with the attempt to put all social wealth under government control? Aren't they Barry? Tens of millions died of starvation in Russian, China, Ethiopia, Cambodia, North Korea. But nothing to do with socialism, right? Just a coincidence?

You haven't learnt anything either in theory or practice from the history of the last 100 years, have you?

We've already established that
a) you're dreaming of totalitarian government - because, as we have just seen, you can't even think of any example of any human co-operation that would not be under government control, so the violent suppression of freedom under socialism is not some kind of strange coincidence as idiots believe, is it? It follows directly from what socialists are trying to achieve, doesn't it?
b) you're contradicting yourself by stipulating for democracy, because as soon as the masses vote for any human freedom, they to that extent reduce government's control over social wealth. So according to your own theory, you're in favour of exploitation. See why I said you're confused?
c) your limit is itself without limit since there's no reason why a majority shouldn't vote to oppress a minority, which is exactly what you're advocating, isn't it, O Confused One?

JKJ, it would be undignified for me to respond to the inaccurate nonsense in your post.

A basic rule of debate is not to misrepresent the views of others.

Readers may like to visit my blog - C21st Left - which has this statement on its front page: "Why bother?... because I believe in a bright future and want to help make a difference. And I refuse to allow the likes of John Pilger, Tariq Ali and Tim Flannery to be seen as leftists".

I'll move on from OLO for now. Thanks Graham for running my piece.

Yuyutsu

Yes indeed the big question is whether socialism is the road to freedom or to serfdom. This motivates me to write something on the subject but I can't do it justice right now.

Joe (Loudmouth)

A revolution with the backing of a majority population of well educated worldly wise wage/salary workers in an advanced capitalist society would be on far firmer ground than the 20th century revolutions in Russia, China etc. They would be in a far far better position to deal with the schemers and scum. Although no guarantee of immediate success of course.

JKJ

If you make something for your own use (or as a gift) it is part of the consumption process. In a socialist society it would not belong to society. The food you cook is for you to consume or share as you wish. The wood and tools you purchased out of your wage or pension to build a chair belong to you as does the completed chair.

According to The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979):

"The objective preconditions for the socialization of the means of production originate deep within capitalist society. They result from the increasingly social character of large-scale machine production, as expressed in the rising level of concentration and centralization of production, the intensification of the social division of labor, the expansion of ties between the different branches of industry and the types of production within each country, and the formation and development of the world economy."

BTW, famines were quite normal in backward agrarian economies. They weren't invented by communists.

David
"If you make something for your own use (or as a gift) it is part of the consumption process."

No it's not.

For example, look at the definition of production: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=production+definition&oq=production+definition&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i65l3j69i60l2.2451j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8

"In a socialist society it would not belong to society."

Yes it would. As soon as you shared it with anyone for any exchange of any kind, it would be privately-owned "social wealth" and therefore illegal.

"The food you cook is for you to consume or share as you wish."

As soon as we move beyond Crusoe economics, to the facts of actual social co-operation, we find that there is no way to distinguish this social wealth, from the privately-owned social wealth that socialism purposes to get rid of.

Both your examples, and what byork is calling "social wealth" have in common that they involve getting products made by others, mixing one's labour to transform them somehow, and then sharing them with others which will almost always be in exchange for some goods and services sometime.

The only theoretical exceptions would be:
1. Crusoe-type situation, and
2. purely charitable giving with no future return or expectation of return of any kind, ever.

You have not escaped this difficulty by definition, but only by arbitrary declaration. But the above total overlap remains, so you have not made the necessary distinction.

What I'm asking you to do is identify the *principle* that would differentiate them?

"The wood and tools you purchased out of your wage or pension to build a chair belong to you as does the completed chair."

So are you saying you couldn't exchange the chair with anyone else for anything, and you couldn't share the chair in expectation of any return?

Yes? No?

The attempt to socialise production but not consumption is doomed to failure, but even if it wasn't, how could you *not* be talking about a totalitarian government, in which all human co-operation was presumptively illegal, and all exchanges implicating production under the arbitrary rule of a political commisariat?

byork

You have not shown that I have misrepresented you.

The problem isn't misrepresentation on my part, it's confusion on yours.

You cannot square the circle. You cannot reconcile the idea that government must have total control over what you are calling "social wealth", with the ideas of
1. human freedom, or
2. democracy.

As soon as you permit any human freedom over anything that is or might be productive, it's "social wealth", and you're contradicting yourself. That's not a misrepresentation, I'm using your definition of social wealth, remember?

If you need democracy to stop socialism from degenerating into mass starvation and mass murder, then what does that tell you?

But if you don't, then why have democracy at all, since it represents a risk that the masses might vote to permit private ownership of productive property? According to your theory, that's "exploitative", remember?

Can you see that you are dreaming that, under a socialist government the production and innovation of capitalism will continue as usual? Your confusion is laughable. It's worse than that, because what you're suggesting is exactly what the communists of the last century actually thought. You have learnt nothing.

So you're dreaming of a situation in which everyone's labour and property is owned by the government, and all production is taken by the government - in other words totalitarian government - and then you're contradicting yourself in hoping that democracy will stop socialism from resulting in mass starvation and mass murder?

If I'm misrepresenting you, then answer my questions?

Do you think the mass starvation that happened under socialism in the 20th century was all just some kind of strange coincidence? Nothing to do with the attempt to socialise the means of production? David?

JKJ

Trying to collectivize peasant agriculture was indeed often a disastrous business. Fortunately peasant agriculture has vanished from many places and will be gone entirely in a few generations.

Socializing modern agriculture will be a lot easier although perhaps harder than manufacturing.

Notice how none of the socialists will answer the question? The reason is, obviously, because if they admit that socialism results in mass killings, it's not much of a recommendation, is it? And if they don't, they prove themselves wilfully ignorant of the bleeding obvious.

"Socializing modern agriculture will be a lot easier although perhaps harder than manufacturing."

That assumes you understand what you're talking about. We've just established that you don't.

Unfortunately illogic and evasion does not qualify you to re-design the world's economy against the wishes of the people who would die as a result.

Children,

Socialism had its chance and blew it. it's bankrupt. It's not ever going to happen. I think Marx knew that after the Paris Commune.

In Australia, the highest number of the working class proper was reached in the fifties and has dropped since then; unless you call Maccas' and KFC workers workers.

Yes, what could have been. Let's move on.

So what can ameliorate the excesses of capitalism ? How can democracy be extended and enriched to counter some of those excesses ?

Capitalism is going to continue to be the driver of the economy, pretty much everywhere. Co-operatives -fphut ! Individuals tending their own gardens, yes, maybe some of us can retreat to pre-feudalism, or even pick up rocks and hunt kangaroos. But most of us will keep working in the here and the now. For all its unspeakably dreadful consequences, the fruits of capitalism provide. Our comfortable quarter-acre blocks, our smoooooth 6-cylinders. Our annual Bali holidays. Longer lives than anything in Marx's time.

We've got it petty good, while capitalism moves its excesses off-shoe: low wages, polluting industries, unsafe work-practices.

But she'll be right. Just don't think about those 'Others'

Joe
You're not comparing apples with apples.

The people accepting those jobs in third world factories are doing it because the alternative is poverty trying to eke a living from a rice paddy. The capitalists are not causing the poverty of the poor. To the extent it's not being caused by nature, it's being caused mostly by the dopey socialist policies of their governments.

Marx's exploitation theory depends on the labour theory of value, which is flatly incorrect. Employment relations are voluntary and mutually beneficial and therefore not exploitative. More than anyone else in the world, the capitalists raise workers' living standards above what they would otherwise be.

The capitalist does not get any more benefit from their labour above the market rate than Barry York or David McMullen or you. Why don't the socialists simply put their money where their mouth is, and *send* them the difference between the market rate for their labour, and what the socialists think the fair rate is? I'd like to see that!

Your assumptions that socialism might be good in theory, but just didn't work in practice, is wrong. It didn't work in practice *because it doesn't and cannot work in theory*. That's why the socialists can't get to even the first step in describing, let alone defending their theory, without falling into repeated self-contradictions and dumbo errors.

Mises explains why here:
http://mises.org/daily/2321

Mises totally explodes the foundations of all political socialism here:
http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf

No socialist has ever answered his argument refuting them.

Go ahead Barry, David. Try.

Hi Jardine Jardine,

I agree with almost every word. But I don't think I wrote that " .... socialism might be good in theory, but just didn't work in practice ...." and I don't believe it.

Marx's notions of historical inevitability, the immiseration of the workers, the diminution of skills (cf. Braverman) and most especially some God-given perfection of a dictatorship of the proletariat (and therefore 'its' Party, and therefore the power of the Leader of the Party of the proletariat) - none of these have survived history.

So let's move on.

Yes, I especially agree with you, that capitalism not only does NOT cause poverty in Third World economies but pumps resources into those economies - yes, of course, they pay lousy wages compared to what Australian workers would be used to, but even the new Chinese capitalist firms in, say, Africa, are having to put in infrastructure (and ultimately to boost education infrastructure) in order to get sufficient returns on their yuan over the long term.

Capitalists, such as the Chinese, may not mean to do so but, by setting up and drawing great numbers into a post-peasant economy, they inevitably move those societies further along pathways towards democracy. If Marx said something like that might be a consequence of capitalism, then he was probably right.

Socialism had its chances, in a multitude of different settings overs the past century. It blew every one. It's not a goer. Let's consign it and our dreams and hopes for it, with many regrets and much grieving, to the dustbin of history.

Joe

Joe

Yep, okay, consider us moved on from accepting that full socialism is no good.

The question then becomes to what extent partial socialism does not necessarily suffer from the same defects, only harder to notice because happening with, or ameliorated by capitalism?

If so, this then implies the abolition or phasing out of all government’s economic and social interventions above the level necessary to protect person and property – a small fraction of all governments’ activity today.

I formed the impression, correct me if I’m wrong, that you shared the following views with socialists:

1. That socialism is or might be good in theory, it’s just there were historical (i.e. not categorical) problems in the implementation (i.e. further trials might yet prove it right):
“Marx and Engels are still in my mind, not gods but, flawed angels, from a very different time, and with vastly less experiences of Real Socialism than we can have, and which we should learn from.”
(i.e. the only disproofs were practical, whereas in 1921 Mises in correct theory disproved the whole socialist project, so the 200 million deaths were unnecessary.)

2. That fascism – i.e. national socialism – is an opposite of socialism, rather than an offspring of it. Whereas Mises showed that fascism is a necessary consequence of attempting to replace capitalism with a better and fairer system based on government control of the means of production, short of full socialism a la Russia.
“Now wait for the Apologists for Fascism to storm your gates.”

3. That theory is not capable of informing us definitely whether or not partial socialism might still be viable (i.e. it might still be good if implemented under democracy).
‘Democracy, uncertainty, imperfection, muddling through, no 'historical inevitability' - that's the uneven and cluttered - post-Enlightenment - path towards the future, which we never reach.”
In other words, barmy socialist schemes (think pink batts) might conceivably work, and there is no way of knowing in theory whether they will or not, other than by trying them in practice.

4.
“So what can ameliorate the excesses of capitalism ?”

You’re still doing what the socialists are doing. Your core beliefs appear the same.
a) the alleged “excesses of capitalism”, as if capitalism causes poverty, market wages are intrinsically unfair and exploitative, and degradation of government-owned resources is the fault of capitalism.
b) the belief that government control of the means of production – socialism – can improve it.

5.
So the central issue is the role of theory: whether we can know in theory that socialism is bad and wrong and doomed to failure, rather than only in practice.

You see the socialists never accept that theory can prove them wrong. That’s why, every time it fails, the socialists get taken by surprise. Millions starve from the collectivisation of agriculture AFTER Mises proved that would necessarily result. The socialists don’t get it. Attempts at full socialism turn into totalitarian governments AFTER Mises explained that’s the only possible result. The socialists don’t get it. Attempts to run the economy short of full socialism turn into fascism AFTER Mises explained that’s the only possible result. The socialists don’t get it. Attempts to improve on capitalism by government regulation of money and credit, turn into a corrupt cartel of legally privileged banks financially raping the working class and crashing the world economy AFTER Mises explained it. The socialists don’t get it and call for more regulation. Pink batts. The socialists don’t get it. State education. The socialists don’t get it. Now they want to take trillions from the working class, and give it to big banks and companies to fine-tune the weather. And the socialists just keep on not getting it! They’re as dumb as fish.

Marx taught that economics is only “ideology”.

Mises taught that it’s the logical implications of human action. We can’t just make up whatever economic reality we want, because of non-negotiable natural limitations on human action, such as physics, time, and logic.

Which theory do you think has better explaining power?

Thanks for reading LOL

JKJ

I am reasonably satisfied with my response to the economic calculation argument of von MIses and other Austrian economists.

See

http://economsoc.wordpress.com/the-economic-case-for-social-ownership/

http://werdiscussion.worldeconomicsassociation.org/?post=re-opening-the-debates-on-economic-calculation-and-motivation-under-socialism&cpage=1#comment-1837/

My main point is that a socialist economy would be in no way limited in its ability to use a decentralized price system as long as it can find an alternative to the profit motive to drive it. This new motivation would be provided by satisfaction from work and the desire to contribute one's best efforts. You may not believe this change in motivation is possible but it is a different matter from von Mises' technical impossibility argument. It is a debate over whether it is possible in practice.

Loudmouth said

"Socialism had its chances, in a multitude of different settings overs the past century. It blew every one. It's not a goer."

I cannot recall a socialist revolution occurring in an advanced modern capitalist society. So socialism hasn't been tried yet in the only conditions where it would have any real chance of succeeding. You could argue about whether we would ever get a revolution in such a society but that is a different issue.

Hi JKJ,

Both. Socialist theory, even Marx's, had obvious flaws (and possibly reactionary undertones, of hankering to go back to a mythical Golden Age of love, sharing and working together), AND it worked even less well in practice.

And frankly, it's not something I am interested in spending much time on any more, except to caution younger players not to be stupid enough to follow in my clumsy footsteps.

I've been thinking that Bolshevism engendered Fascism - anti-democratic movements seem to inevitably move in that common direction, with all the ghastly trappings of the 'necessary extractions', the untrammelled power for those in power, the blatant falsities that everybody parrots. And frankly, I don't know which was worse.

Fighting for genuine democracy, of the many against the few, as chaotic in opinions as possible, as open as possible, open and un-prescripted societies against the most beautifully sculpted and perfect-looking, ready-made, closed Good Society -those are the never-ending tasks. Nothing once and for all. That way lies Fascism.

Joe

David
I think you deserve credit for at least recognizing the problem. Almost all socialists are completely ignorant of it, and merely repose open-ended credulity in a supposed economic super-competence and benevolence of government that has no basis in evidence or reason.

Your central argument seems to be that socialist trustees could buy and sell production goods, and hence give rise to a price system. Therefore assuming that they were motivated to use the trust property, and devote its fruits, for the good of "society", there is no reason why economic calculation is intrinsically impossible under socialism. Thus the economic calculation problem is assimilated to the profit motive problem.

Main objections are these. If your assumptions were true, there would be no need for any governmental action. People could achieve it by their own voluntary actions.

The fact people don't do this, proves that two foundational assumptions are invalid.

Firstly, it's not true that the motive to selflessly benefit strangers is greater than the motive to benefit oneself and one's kin; and I think your reasons it supposedly “would” under socialism, are far too weak a prop for far too heavy a burden. (In fact your assumption, while not impossible, contradicts evolutionary theory. So unless you're going to come up with a different account of the origin of species, you've got a major theoretical problem.)

Secondly, you have assumed that government is or would be more representative of society, than society is of itself by its own voluntary actions. This assumption has no basis in evidence or reason; totally lacking a theory of the state.

Also, if the socialist trust properties included only major enterprises, the economic calculation problem would persist as concerns all excluded capital goods.

But if the socialist trust properties includes all capital goods
a) how does it work?, and
b) account for the costs?

Either way, you have not established that the system would equal or better capitalism, in your own terms, and *even assuming no issue as to profit motive*.

I do not accept your arguments or assumptions about public goods, externalities, taxation, or monopolies.

Really it's just a more complicated version of "Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was nice?" theory.

It reminds me of the anarchists who, when you ask them how it's going to work, tell you that no-one's going to be selfish or aggressive. That's really what you're assuming.

The very fact that, according to you, the countries most ready to do what you have in mind, are those in the capitalist economies where work has become more fulfilling and less irksome
a) contradicts your assumptions about alienation
b) is a recommendation of capitalism, not a criticism
c) gives no reason to think that it would continue or be better under socialism.

Like byork, you have just assumed that the productivity and innovation of capitalism would continue, without the profit motive or related entrepreneurship. "Wouldn't it be nice if everyone just gave away all their net income to other people?".

Mises by the way deals with your thesis by defining the owner as "those on whom the losses fall". Therefore the socialist trustees would not be, and would not function as the owners. The owners would be those the state had violently expropriated, not the political priviligentsia they had favoured with other people's property.

(Mises assumes, with the rest of the world, that owners will be more concerned to preserve their own interests than to serve others at cost to themselves. The Austrians have virtually regarded it as axiomatic, and I think if I, or you, had to bet on it, the smart money would be on Mises, not you.)

Basically you have not taken the discussion any further than Marx, who simply assumed without any real explanation, that the profit motive would disappear under socialism, and that the working class would benefit more economically from socialism than from capitalism.

But like you, he never gave any real reason, he just baldly assumed it.

So I don't think you should be reasonably satisfied with your response to the economic calculation argument. And I think one should always be seeking to falsify, not to confirm, any theory, especially one's own.

Dear Joe,

<<So what can ameliorate the excesses of capitalism ? How can democracy be extended and enriched to counter some of those excesses?>>

it seems quite clear that socialism is not the solution, first and foremost because it cannot be implemented without violence. It seems also clear that from a purely economic perspective, capitalism produces more and brings about economic growth.

But capitalism isn't good either because it results in competition, which causes:

* stress - having to work under unhealthy pressures, including ethical pressures.
* anxiety - for lack of job security and the constant demand for new or different skills.
* hatred and malice - towards competitors.
* the bane of advertising - encouraging greed, discontent, vanity and waste by purchasing goods and services otherwise unsought for, including unhealthy ones.
* disregard for the environment.
* inferior products which deliberately do not last (so that more can be sold).
* lack of stability and predictability - which wastes everyone's time around researching new products, studying how to use them and constantly tackling their teething problems. The purpose of these products is supposedly to save us time for what is really important in life (eg. our spiritual journey, or at least our families and/or friends), but instead they leave us time-impoverished and physically tired, reduces family ties and leaves very little time for human contact.

I can't see a solution unless we can undermine the materialism that underlines both capitalism and socialism, unless we have a spiritual foundation strong enough to counter greed, envy, malice and vanity.

As opposed to the violence of materialistic socialism, there is the possibility of a society that creates similar communal structures - but voluntarily, in the spirit of good-will, without a trace of coercion, where participation is not forced on the general public, such structures which balance the security of having our bodily needs met with supporting our spiritual aspirations. However, the devil in the human genes is strong and only the strongest faith and common spiritual values can succeed and withstand the temptations where naive assumptions of good-natured humanism failed.

Hi Yuyutsu,

"As opposed to the violence of materialistic socialism [and capitalism], there is the possibility of a society that creates similar communal structures - but voluntarily, in the spirit of good-will, without a trace of coercion, where participation is not forced on the general public, such structures which balance the security of having our bodily needs met with supporting our spiritual aspirations. However, the devil in the human genes is strong and only the strongest faith and common spiritual values can succeed and withstand the temptations where naive assumptions of good-natured humanism failed."

No, I don't envisage that happening either, too many internal contradictions. It's over, boys.

Of course, we all need dreams. I'm in a singing group, Sing Australia, and sometimes we sing John Lennon's 'Imagine'. I can't stand it, I call it 'The Syria Song'. And also 'I'd Like to Teach the world to Sing in Perfect Harmony'. Dream Songs.

So how to ameliorate the worst excesses of capitalism ? That's the boring, hum-drum, no-flashy-revolutionaries-on-the-barricades stuff. No ready-made Good Society prescriptions, that's the road to fascism. As, surprisingly, Hayek wrote about. And Popper. And they were right.

Back to the hard grind of doing what each of us can, to leave the world a slightly better place when we go. Nothing flashy, nothing megalomaniac. Just sheer hard work.

Joe

JKJ

In my papers I don't just assume changed behavior. I start to flesh out reasons why I would expect to see it emerge.

The links again for anyone interested.

http://economsoc.wordpress.com/the-economic-case-for-social-ownership/

http://werdiscussion.worldeconomicsassociation.org/?post=re-opening-the-debates-on-economic-calculation-and-motivation-under-socialism&cpage=1

As P.J. O'Rourke said, everyone wants to fight for a better world, no-one wants to help Mum do the dishes.

Those problems you identify Yuyutsu are not caused by capitalism, they're caused by nature.

Capitalism, alone of all systems, ameliorates their excesses, and it does it without recourse to the arbitrary power of a legal monopoly of violence. The socialists have got it precisely backward.

If the spiritual phenomenon of 'socialist man' ever arrives, there will be no need to socialise the means of production. It will suffice to socialise its fruits, as Zuckerberg recently gave 25 million dollars to fight Ebola, and as Gates and Buffett and others have made a habit of doing.

Socialism assumes that the rich, in investing capital, do not benefit society. But who is to say that the most urgent and important needs of society, *as judged by society*, are not served by whatever the capitalists first made their profit from? This is quite apart from any question of philanthropy, however it is fake philanthropy to be generous with other people's money taken under compulsion, even if the socialists were selfless and incorruptible angels which they're not, obviously.

Under capitalism, profit and loss are the process by which the masses direct the whole process of production to serve their own most urgent and important wants, as judged by themselves. Both the profit motive, and economic calculation, count against socialism, not in favour.

The damage and retardation which the socialists have done to the processes that make society productive, just, and harmonious have been immeasurable and criminal.

The good life for man is best served by one simple principle as the basis of both morality and politics: no-one may legitimately use aggression or fraud against the person or property of another, and that rules out all coerced, and therefore all political, forms of wealth re-distribution.

Christ, this is like talking to a Jehovah's Witness about the non-existence of Heaven and how to get there.

Jesus, we ARE talking with believers about the non-existence of Heaven and how to get there.

There is no Heaven. There are no pathways to something non-existent.

Don't waste your lives wishing for the impossible. Move on.

Joe

David

Sorry, not good enough.

Firstly, you need to make your argument in here. I am not to be sent on an errand to construct your argument for you. All you've got by that tactic is an appeal to absent authority - (your own) = logical fallacy, which proves my conclusion - socialism has only support from irrationality - not the conclusion you are contending for, that selflessness "would" break out under socialism.

The reasons you gave, so far as I could make out, turn on changes in behaviour under capitalism, so it is both self-contradiction and non sequitur to claim that you have justified either violence-based expropriation of property by a legal monopoly of aggression, or common ownership of the means of production.

By all means prove me wrong, but you haven't done that. All you're doing is posting links. If I adopt that tactic, I'll just post links and claim that disposes of the issue in my favour. It's for you to prove your argument, not for me to go find and extract it, state and prove it for you as best I or you can, and then disprove it, while you just sit back posting links.

Go ahead. Join issue and prove me wrong.

You have only made the exact same assumption - the State as some kind of benevolent super-competent economiser - that led the Bolsheviks, the Maoists, the Khmer Rouge, the Megisuists, and all the dreary roll-call of the worst genocides in the history of the world - who just happen to be socialists - to do what they did.

This is the frightening thing about the socialists. They have learnt nothing. Given the chance would kill the same number of people again, or more, for exactly the same reason, as they are currently proving with their latest nutty proposals to negate a significant fraction of the production of the world, in the name of fine-tuning the weather, and ushering in the paradise of socialism.

It's worse than stupid, it's criminally stupid.

Show us your *non-fallacious* response please.

Barry, do you appreciate the irony of your own article? Maoists were (and are) even more pseudo left than Blairites!

And your rejection of sustainability is worryingly like Tony Abbott. Most of the left understand that sustainability is ESSENTIAL. The environment is extremely valuable, and leaving future generations worse off and calling it progress does not equate to genuine progress. Sure we should unleash productive forces through the further mastery of nature... but that's best accmplished by working with nature rather than against it.

Apart from not sharing your dispicable contempt for the environment, I fit into your four key element definition of the left. And I think the biggest problem is that it's been discredited by those with an illogical opposition to markets and by those who want nationalization for its own sake rather than for efficiency gains.

Dear Joe,

<<No, I don't envisage that happening either, too many internal contradictions.>>

I agree. It's not likely to happen on a large scale, not during this Kali-Yuga that we live in.

<<I'm in a singing group, Sing Australia, and sometimes we sing John Lennon's 'Imagine'. I can't stand it,>>

That's the problem with large groups: you have no control.

I looked up your group and was surprised at the numbers, then I checked the repertoire and decided it's not my cup of tea, that I would aim higher, singing to God. Although almost all Australian choirs that aim higher are Christian, one doesn't have to believe the literal words to be moved and inspired. Have you considered joining one?

<<to leave the world a slightly better place when we go>>

The world isn't good or bad - it's just a school. Better use it to become slightly better yourself while you're here.

---

Dear Jardine,

You don't need to convince me about the evils of socialism, but other than saying "they're caused by nature", you mentioned no cure to the problems I listed. Fires are also caused by nature, but we still try to extinguish them if we can.

Socialist regimes are much worse: they shoot, they enslave, there's no food, no freedom of religion and no toilet-paper or hot water, BUT, there's less of those specific problems that I mentioned, despite their natural-source. Yes, the origins are natural, but while socialism allows the most murderous and cruel aspects of human nature to surface, capitalism allows the most greedy, reckless and sneaky aspects to surface.

I was looking for ways to curb the problems (without incurring the worse problems that socialism brings) and all I could come up with was a voluntary society held and united by good-will, as if a family, and that's only possible through strong spiritual faith.

I see nothing wrong with socialist-LIKE societies so long as they are completely voluntary, without coercion, where no-one is forced to be a member and anyone who wants to leave can do so at any time.

Aidan
Where did you get the idea that government is some kind of efficiency-generating device, or makes resource-use more sustainable?

Are you sure you it wasn’t during your compulsory government indoctrination? Because in case you haven’t noticed, it has no basis in reality or reason.

Jane Goodall showed what no-one had known about chimpanzees before. One of them was that they form themselves into marauding bands that invade each others’ territories and kill the other chimps. It is this tendency in humans, perhaps inherited from a common ancestor, that gives rise to the institution of government.

Saw a doco on Robert the Bruce last night. Guys hacking and slashing each other. That’s where governments come from. ISIS.

Once established, the Big Rock-Ape is then in a position to dictate terms of obedience, tribute, and privilege to everyone else. That’s where the institutions of sovereignty, jurisdiction, legislation and taxation come from. They are just threats and thieving by a different name.

Government is a gang of thieves writ large. At best, it’s a protection racket of which you might get the protection even while it extorts you. Actually at best you might be the privileged recipient of what the Big Ape has stolen from those weaker and less aggressive. All political socialism amounts to the wish that this power, and this stealing, will become the general condition of society.

Yuyutsu
“I was looking for ways to curb the problems (without incurring the worse problems that socialism brings) and all I could come up with was a voluntary society”

I agree. I don’t think they’re political problems.

Life is stress. Read a NatGeo article about a westerner staying with some hunter gatherers. 4 a.m. and “I’m hungry” says one of them. So they have to go off to the hill to hunt baboons with fangs like knives.

The problems of scarcity aren’t caused or exacerbated by capitalism.

All
The moral revolution, and the ideal society, is for people to stop approving the initiation of aggression, not for a monopoly of coercion to forcibly expropriate capital goods and dictate the conditions of production.

Jardine K. Jardine, the answer to your first question is "in your head". In reality government ownership doesn't automatically bring efficiency nor sustainability. However there are good reasons why it can: firstly, governments have access to cheaper finance than the private sector. Secondly the most efficient method of infrastructure provision (in terms of costs and benefits) usually involves regeional monopolies. But the private sector have a strong incentive to abuse any monopolies they gain (and a track record of doing so). The public sector, being accountable to all the people rather than just the shareholders, don't have such a strong tendency for monopoly abuse (though it's still something we must watch out for and guard against).

My point about supporting nationalization where it leads to greater efficiency is that I DON'T support nationalization of everything, and there's no good reason why anyone on the left should. It's as stupid as Mises! I notice youre repeating that imbecile's claims about fascism being the result of attempting to replace capitalism with something else. Are you unaware of what happened under Pinnochet in Chile or Suharto in Indonesia? Fascism occurs if individual rights are disregarded whether those in power are for or against capitalism.

As for making resource use more sustainable, that's because governments make and enforce laws. Without governments there'd be anarchy, and it would be almost impossible to achieve the level of cooperation that modern society depends on. I inserted the word "almost" because unlike those chimps, we have language ability, and it's possible for different control structures to emerge. An examole of that is Australian Aboriginal Law extending across different tribal groups.

There's a stereotype that the left want to redistriute the pie more fairly (which they define as more equally) and the right want to grow the pie. In reality it's the other way round: the left want to grow the pie and the right want it distributed more fairly (which they define as keeping more of it with those who already have it).

Aidan
I had hoped to reply to you this evening but something has come up and I'll try tomorrow to deal with the points you have raised.

However the general issue is whether government can rationally economise. If your assumptions or assertions are true, then why wouldn't it be true in general, i.e. why do you not support full socialism?

However if, or once, you concede that full socialism cannot rationally economise, then the question becomes, by what rational criterion do you distinguish the economic activities in which government admittedly cannot, from those in which it supposedly can, rationally economise? Why don't the same arguments against full governmental control of the means of production apply to whatever partial control you support? Merely calling it "infrastructure" won't answer, because that only begs the question by what rational criterion you distinguish infrastructure from other capital goods.

If you can't answer these questions, then there's no need for me to address the issues you have raised.

PS Remember it has to be a rational demonstration. You can't just assume or assert it, which is what you did above, because that's what's in issue, so if you do that the argument is circular = fallacious = irrational, and you're proving my argument and contradicting your own.

You have to show how government is going to ration scarce resources to their most valued ends, as judged by those paying for, and those consuming, the service, and using some rational criterion.

I don't believe you can do it but if you can by all means prove me wrong please.

JKJ

Infrastructure differs from other capital goods by being geographically fixed. A second characteristic is that other economic activity depends on it being there.

The issue is not whether the government can rationally economise, but how well it can do so. Because normally the private sector can do better. But I can think of five reasons why it's possible for the public sector can be more efficient. The first, as I've mentioned, is cheaper capital. The second is the private sector organization not passing on the savings. This is usually the result of insufficient competition. It can be addressed by regulation, but effective regulation is often difficult. The third reason is where the public sector staff are highly commerted to the job they do, particularly if they're highly specialized and have been doing it for years. Not only does the private sector often not have the expertise, but it doesnt always recognise the need for that expertise until it's too late. This is related to the fourth reason: when governments outsource their services, often there's too little incentive to perform efficiently. The classic example is the school halls scheme — very bad value in the states where management was outsourced to the private sector, but good value in the states where it was managed by the public sector. The fifth reason is the overproliferationn of lawyers in some parts of the private sector.

I assume by "full socialism" you mean public ownership of the means of production. That's a definition I reject, as for the last half century or so, it's mainly been about redistribution of wealth. But in answer to your question, the objective shouldn't be to freeze out either the public sector or the private sector, but rather to get the best result. Markets are a very useful tool for this, but governments must be very careful how they use markets.

Aidan

"Infrastructure differs from other capital goods by being geographically fixed."

Stockyards? Fences? Shops? Mines? Factories? Offices?

I’m getting the impression you haven’t thought this through.

"The issue is not whether the government can rationally economise, but how well it can do so."

Well if it can't do it at all, it can't do it well, can it?

"That's [socialism as public ownership of the means of production] a definition I reject, as for the last half century or so, it's mainly been about redistribution of wealth."

So is robbing petrol stations, but the question is whether you can provide any rational criterion to distinguish it from socialism.

(BTW the only reason the socialists changed tack was because socialising the means of production was such a spectacular failure. So, having conceded its once-core tenet is wrong, what makes you think the philosophy remains valid?)

Your argument, or rather assumptions, about monopoly fail for four reasons.

Firstly, if the purpose of the exercise is to avoid the *possibility* of a *voluntary* monopoly, it is impossible to see how the *certainty* of a *coercive* monopoly is in any better position.

Secondly, you haven’t defined monopoly or “abuse”. To do so you will have to show by what rational criterion you distinguish monopoly price from competitive price. Go ahead.

Thirdly, you’re using a double standard. You assume that private monopolists “abuse” their position, and that government monopolists don’t. However that is to merely assume that government is superior at economising, which is what is in issue = circular argument. You’re assuming what is yours to prove. If your assumption were correct, full communism would have been a wonderful success.

Fourthly, it’s factually untrue that government supposedly is more "accountable". They never account to you for how much tax you pay (all of it, not just income tax), and they almost certainly don’t know. They never account to you for what they spend it on. You have no right to withhold payment. The law against misleading and deceptive conduct applies only in trade and commerce, not in government or politics.

(cont.)

You have no legal remedy whatsoever against them for taking billions on false misrepresentations (think: “there will be no carbon tax under any government I lead”). Government itself defines tax as an “unrequited” payment, meaning it is *not* payment for goods or services, and entitles you to *nothing whatsoever* in return. All of their revenue is obtained by threatening to have people attacked, caged and raped.

It is simply nonsense to claim governments are more accountable to their subjects than private firms are to their shareholders or customers. If governments were held to the same standards as private corporations, all politicians would be in prison for a very long time.

“governments have access to cheaper finance than the private sector.”

Well if the private sector granted itself a right to threaten to lock people up to get their money, they’d have access to cheaper finance too wouldn’t they? So according to your theory, that would make society more efficient and sustainable, wouldn’t it?

The question is not whether it’s cheaper, it’s whether it’s more efficient, and obviously if it didn’t involve people forcing people to forego what they value more, in favour of what they value less, then no coercion would be necessary, would it? You’re not coming to terms with the fundamental values which efficiency is supposed to serve.

“As for making resource use more sustainable, that's because governments make and enforce laws.”

Making and enforcing laws does not, of itself, make resource use more sustainable. If it did, communism would have been an environmental paradise.

As to your five reasons.

1.
Cheaper capital
If it’s cheaper because of government’s coercive advantage, which it is, then you haven’t established that it’s more efficient, see above.

2.
“the private sector organization not passing on the savings.”

a) You haven’t established why the net benefit to society would be better if they did, than if they didn’t. You’re assuming you know what the configuration of supply, demand and price should be. You don’t. (Or if you do, you need to prove it, not just assume it, because that’s what’s in issue.)

(cont.)

b) Double standard. You haven’t explained why the same, or worse, won’t apply to government.

“This is usually the result of insufficient competition.”

Circularity.

Define “insufficient”. No appeal to allegedly perfect abstract infinitesimal mathematical states, please.

“It can be addressed by regulation, but effective regulation is often difficult.”

Circularity. You’re assuming government is superior at economising. But that’s what you’re supposed to be proving. The reason effective regulation is “often difficult”, is precisely because that assumption has no basis in reality or reason.

3.
“The third reason is where the public sector staff are highly commerted to the job”

(By “commerted” I presume you mean competent or committed or such like.)

This again is not comparing apples with apples, and assumes government’s superiority. The question is not whether government staff are highly competent or expert, the question is whether the same amount of resources could produce more or better net result for society, (or whatever you want to call the ultimate human welfare criterion), than would obtain under a voluntary dispensation.

You haven’t given any reason to think that it would. You’re just assuming it again.

4.
“This is related to the fourth reason: when governments outsource their services, often there's too little incentive to perform efficiently.”

There's too little incentive for *anyone* to perform government services efficiently, precisely because
a) no-one voluntarily pays for them,
b) people value something else more highly, otherwise no coercion would be necessary to fund them, and
c) the concept of efficiency becomes incoherent when the connection between what the consumers want, and what the producers supply, is severed at the root.

That's the whole problem you're trying to get around in the first place, remember?

We don't need to know effective regulation is "often difficult". What you need to prove is whether it can *ever* produce a net benefit, compared to what would obtain under a voluntary dispensation.

The assertion of government’s superior efficiency has no basis in reality. You’re proving my point, not yours.

5
“The fifth reason is the overproliferationn of lawyers in some parts of the private sector.”

This assumes you know what the correct supply of lawyers should be, independently of market prices. (Hint: everyone thinks the supply of lawyers is too much).

But what we’re trying to find out is, *relative to what rational criterion* and *how do you know*?

Answer?

You also assume that the overproliferation has got nothing to do with government’s unjustified activities = begging the question = circular.

“the objective shouldn't be to freeze out either the public sector or the private sector, but rather to get the best result.”

You’re assuming the intrinsic superiority of government at economising whatever it’s doing.

You’ve just proved my argument – there is no rational basis for socialism - not yours, that it’s justified, that it makes the pie bigger, or that it makes for a fairer society.

All
Notice this constant pattern with all the apologists for socialism so far: byork, David, and Aiden?

They
- Enter assuming the superior competence and virtue of government
- When that is questioned, they repeat the assumption,
- When that is questioned, they repeat the assumption
- When that is questioned, they repeat the assumption.

And so on. That's it. That's all they've got. Endlessly going round and round in circles.

What they never do, because they can’t, is show any rational criterion to establish what is in issue, namely government’s supposed superiority at providing goods or services, at ‘growing the pie’, or its alleged selflessness.

Thus we have established, over and over again, that socialism cannot be rationally defended.

On critical examination, it always just crumbles into a garbled jumble of arbitrary moralising, aggressive violations of liberty and property, capital destructionism, corrupt political privileges, armed attacks against peaceable and voluntary society, and disclaiming the results of their own policies.

Their pretensions are false. They should really be called anti-socialists, because that’s all they are.

JKJ, you're being rather disingenuous here. I have not made any assumption of intrinsic superiority of government at economising whatever it’s doing. I suggest you reread what I wrote – 'tis almost the opposite! I said "normally the private sector can do better" and subsequently listed five possible reasons for exceptions. I'm not saying any of them always apply. Indeed I'm not aware of any case of them all applying (although as they're based on public and private sector characteristics, they wouldn't all become apparent until something is privatised or nationalised). Even with the disastrous privatisation of British Rail, not all applied, as the UK government had long denied BR access to cheap capital.

And when I explained my main reason for not preferring "full socialism", your accusation that I'm "assuming the intrinsic superiority of government at economising whatever it’s doing" is highly illogical, for if I was making that assumption then surely I would regard "full socialism" as preferable? (From an economic viewpoint at least; I could still oppose it for reasons of freedom.)

Nor have I made any circular argument. Not a single one. I have made some unsupported claims and incomplete arguments and I make no apologies for that – arguing everything from first principles would be very awkward in a forum with a 350 word*4 post per day limit. Also it would be very tedious and a terrible waste of time. And I wouldn't expect it to be necessary, as there are likely to be points on which we already agree.

Stockyards, fences, shops, mines, factories and offices are user infrastructure: geographically fixed, but not usually meeting my second criterion of other economic activity depending on them being there. There's usually plenty of alternatives, so no reason for the government to get involved. Fences are usually of no benefit other than to those whose land they're on or bordering, so again, no reason for governments to get involved. But there are exceptions, such as those fences that Australia's built to keep rabbits and dingoes out of certain areas.

(To be continued)

"Well if it can't do it at all, it can't do it well, can it?"
Of course, but the claim that it is totally impossible for governments to rationally economise is extraordinary and would require extraordinary evidence. All the evidence I've seen shows they can, though not usually as effectively as the private sector.

"So is robbing petrol stations, but the question is whether you can provide any rational criterion to distinguish it from socialism."
Are you really incapable of providing any rational criteria yourself? I'm starting to suspect that you're trying to win the argument by default by acting stupid in order to convince me that it's not worth continuing!

Robbery generally doesn't redistribute wealth from those who have it and can afford to lose it to those who need it. What robbery does is redistribute wealth from those who have it to those who want it and are unscrupulous enough to endanger others to take it. And it does so in a way that's costly and unpredictable.

"So, having conceded its once-core tenet is wrong, what makes you think the philosophy remains valid?)"
Improved understanding. I didn't just look at the flaws in their arguments, but also to how they reacted to those flaws and what they were trying to achieve and why. And more importantly, I gradually discovered most of the arguments of the right were equally flawed.

Regarding monopolies, the "purpose of the exercise" is to avoid monopoly owners overcharging their customers. I leave it to others to give an exact definition of how high the charges have to be before it constitutes "abuse" but unless you are arguing that it never can, my point stands.

I'm NOT assuming government monopolies don't abuse their position. As I said, it's still something we must watch out for and guard against. However the shareholders of private sector organisations generally just want them to make money, whereas governments usually have a public purpose for the organisations they own.

To be continued...

JKJ,
You're conflating different meanings of "governments". Just because the executive gets away with a lot of lying doesn't mean the entire public sector does.

And government does not get its revenue by threatening to rape people.

"Making and enforcing laws does not, of itself, make resource use more sustainable."
That's like saying "making and enforcing laws does not, of itself, make roads safer."

As to your responses to my five reasons, they appear to be the result of poor comprehension on your part – they're reasons why the public sector can be more efficient than the private sector, not an attempt at proof that it is. But note the following:

1. I wasn't thinking of coercive power, but rather the fact that Australia owns the Reserve Bank so can always borrow cheaply. And state governments generally have good credit ratings, so why shouldn't they take advantage of that?

2a. Are you really ignorant of something so basic as why the net benefit to society would be better if the savings were passed on?

2b. I've already addressed most of your points.
And though it is not what I'm claiming, the position that "private monopolists abuse their position, and that government monopolists don’t" does not assume that "governments are superior at economising" as economising relates to costs, not prices.

3.Apologies for the typo. It should have said committed.

An example is the ABC. Many staff prefer to work for it even though they could earn more money working elsewhere.

4. How much do you honestly think those factors impact on how well individuals do their jobs? And why, if they have so little incentive, do you think the WA government managed to get such better value for money for the School Halls scheme than the outsourced management in Vic and NSW?

5. The problem isn't the actual number of lawyers, but rather a shift in mindset from "what can we achieve?" to "what can we get away with?"

As for growing the pie, Gough Whitlam introduced free university education. Has anyone on the right done anything comparable?

“All the evidence I've seen shows they can…”

Experience cannot beat logic. You’re assuming government can rationally economise, or do things better, or provide net benefits in the first place, which is what is in issue, so it’s assuming what is in issue, so it’s circular.

Think of it this way. What if you are wrong?

Let’s suppose, just for the sake of argument, that government cannot rationally economise or provide net benefits. Now it’s already common ground that they can’t do it, as concerns full socialism. The question is whether the same reason they can’t do it in full socialism, applies equally to partial socialism. That’s what you have to prove. I don’t have to prove they can’t, because I could only be called on to do that if we assume they can = circularity. Okay? Fair enough?

When challenged, a supporter of government, in its defence, points to a capital good or service provided by government. But that doesn’t prove it’s a net benefit, or that society would not have been better off under a voluntary disposition of the same resources. Illogical.

Just imagine we’re talking about an irrational belief system.

“How do you know that throwing virgins into the volcano increases crop fertility?”
“All the evidence I’ve seen shows it does.”
“What evidence?”
“Increased crop fertility after we throw in the virgins.”
“How do you know that’s because of, rather than despite, throwing in the virgins?”
“It doesn’t automatically do it; but there are good reasons why it can.”
“Like what?”
“The high priests can increase crop fertility cheaper.”
“How so?”
“They don’t have to bother obtaining the consent of the people who own the resources they use. They can just take them by threatening to lock them up.”
“But how do you know it provides a net benefit to society? What account have you taken of the coercive nature of the transaction in figuring whether the value sacrificed were worth it?”
“Why shouldn’t we take advantage of that?”
“Look. You agree that throwing *everyone* into the volcano would not provide a net social benefit?”
“Yes.”

(cont.)

“Then how do you know that throwing in *anyone* does?
“Are you really incapable of providing any rational criteria yourself?”
“But I’m asking you: can you provide any rational criterion to determine that it does?”
“I'm starting to suspect that you're trying to win the argument by default by acting stupid in order to convince me that it's not worth continuing!”
“Well that’s assuming that it does increase crop fertility. But how do you know?”
“Are you really ignorant of something so basic as why the net benefit to society would be better?”
“Well the question is whether the net benefit to society would be better. So … prove it?”
“The high priests who chuck them in are committed to this socially beneficial work even though they could earn more money working elsewhere. You won’t find that in a free market oh no sirree.”
“No doubt you’re right. But what I want to know is, how do you know its provides a net benefit to society, in terms of the values that are forcibly sacrificed?”
“We get increased crop fertility for ‘free’. ”
“How do you know farmers couldn’t have got the same or more crop fertility increases, more economically, if you hadn’t used the resources you did?”
“Because. They can and do sometimes overcharge.”
“Relative to what?”
“I don't really know. Relative to what the high priests say.”
“How do you know the high priests aren’t overcharging?”
“They might.”
“So how do you know it’s better? How do you know the whole scheme isn’t just a force-based redistribution of property from the productive class to a parasitic priviligentsia, that has no basis in rationality, let alone ethics?”
“I've already addressed most of your points."

That’s what you’re doing, and that’s all you’re doing.

I’m asking what rational criterion you are using to distinguish the realm in which government does have this alleged economic superiority, and every single response of yours just keeps going endlessly assuming that it must be able to do it. When challenged, you deny you’re doing it, and then you just keep on doing it.

I respectfully suggest that, if you try falsifying instead of trying to confirm your proposition, you will probably find it:
a) easier, and
b) more logical
c) more parsimonious, and
d) has a lot more explaining power.

If government can rationally economise, or provide net benefits, then it doesn’t’ explain why *no-one* can *ever* come up with *any* rational criterion to demonstrate it; as we have just seen, not just from you, but from byork and David as well.

But if government cannot do it, that explains
a) why you disagree with full socialism,
b) why all attempts to demonstrate it are demonstrably illogical.

(PS They can’t do it: http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf)

In their total confusion, all socialists are doing is supporting the abuse of power, and the stronger exploiting the weaker: the opposite of what they think they’re supporting. Then when they see the unfairness and impovershment their policies produce, they call for more government intervention, because they just can't get over this belief that they have been brainwashed into, that government is some kind of cuddly wuddly big teat that expresses nourishing love.

It is simply a deluded belief that the force-based destruction of capital makes society better off.

Experience may not beat logic, but it can certainly highlight logical errors, and your arguments are full of them. The idea that governments are totally incapable of economising is so logically preposterous that I really didn't think I needed to explain why they can.

And because my arguments that assumed they can did not claim to be proving they can, they were not circular.

But if you want logical proof, perhaps you could tell me what, if anything, is wrong with this simple argument:

Work is done by people.
Many people working in the public sector have previously done similar jobs in the private sector.
So how, logically, can the public sector not do what the private sector does?
Do you think people magically lose their skills when they become public sector employees?

You seem to be quite skilled at taking answers out of context, but not so skilled at considering their significance in context. For instance my question “Are you really ignorant of something so basic as why the net benefit to society would be better if the savings were passed on?” concerned something that is a fundamental tenet of the economics of the Right as well as the Left.

ARE you really ignorant of the answer?
'Tis quite simple: when the benefit is passed on to customers, it enables them to do more than they previously did. It's one of the main drivers of economic growth.

"I’m asking what rational criterion you are using to distinguish the realm in which government does have this alleged economic superiority,"
Finally a sensible question!

Unfortunately there's no one answer – not everything can be reduced to a formula. For some things the way to decide is to open it up to private competition. For others, economic modelling is the best way we can determine it. Yet others require value judgements, so are best determined democratically.

By "force based destruction of capital" I assume you mean taxation. By removing it from circulation, it allows more money to be put into circulation in a way that benefits all, not just the already rich.

“… your arguments are full of [logical errors].”

Maybe so, but you haven’t identified any.

“The idea that governments are totally incapable of economising is so logically preposterous that I really didn't think I needed to explain why they can.”

Well you do, because that's what's in issue. I admit they can provide benefits. It’s just that there’s no way of knowing whether it’s a net benefit, and lots of reason for thinking it’s not.

You still haven’t given any non-circular reason why they can rationally economise.

“And because my arguments that assumed they can did not claim to be proving they can, they were not circular.”

Well then perhaps you can prove what you’re maintaining now?

“But if you want logical proof … what, if anything, is wrong with this simple argument:
Work is done by people…
public sector employees?”

Work per se – digging holes and filling them in again – does not satisfy human wants. To rationally economise, we must use means in a way that doesn't sacrifice the satisfaction of values higher in people's value scales. That’s what you can’t prove.

The public sector can’t do what the private sector does because it can’t identify how to combine the factors of production using profit and loss based on private ownership.

You are assuming that, out of all the zillions of production possibilities, the solutions of what and how to produce are just given; but you’re assuming the capitalist competition process to discover it.

“When the benefit is passed on to customers, it enables them to do more than they previously did.”

Yes. The question is whether those same resources would not be more productively or beneficially employed if the capitalists had invested them towards the satisfaction of other wants? You’re assuming that central planners know how to run an economy; and that profit = waste.

“Unfortunately there's no one answer”

Therefore we have no way of knowing that full socialism might not be a wonderful success – we just have to keep on trying it?

“taxation”…. “benefits all”

So why not make it 100%?

Aidan et al.,

I'm not sure what planet you're on, but it ain't Earth. How much experience of socialism do you want ? From the Paris Commune onwards, the 1905 Revolution, 1917 [1 and 2], Hungary, Berlin, Bavaria, the Canton Commune, etc., etc., etc., right through the Pol Pot and Mengistu years, all up there must be hundreds and hundreds of years of bitter experience to draw on, in dozens of countries, a multitude of lessons to be learnt.

But you write as if it were 1869 or so, before any actual attempt at socialism had been tried, with it all in front of us, just needing a bit of fine-tuning. It's 2014, Rip van Winkle :) It's been tried. It's been tried. It's been tried. It failed every time.[Christ, talk about Edison's light-bulb experiments] Why did it fail every time ? Not for some nice esoteric dilemma over theory, but in hard, mucky practice. It failed. It's a dead parrot.

So let's move on. What next ?

Joe

Loudmouth –

Like every economic philosophy, socialism is a collection of features that we can pick and choose. Stop treating it as a package deal!

Hi Aidan,

Not a package deal ? Then how would you propose applying it piece-meal ?

Yes, it was designed as a package, since it's part of a political movement to overthrow one economic system - one package - and replace it totally with another. i.e. pretty much total war. Not much room for 'piecemeal', it's all or nothing.

And we now know, over the bodies of how many millions, that it amounted to nothing.

Don't waste your life worrying over it, Aidan. Move on.

Joe

The question of net benefit is indeed very complex.

Very few would argue against the gross benefit of capitalist competition.

But how can we quantify the damages of competition against that benefit?

Earlier I mentioned a list of undesirable side-effects: stress, anxiety, hatred, advertising, environmental-degradation, short-lived products and lack of stability requiring constant time-wasting adaptation.

In addition, competition takes time and mental resources from everyone. Understandably, when everyone strives for better and more ingenious solutions, rather than just a few bureaucrats, then the chances of improving goods and services is higher - no wonder there, where everyone contributes their unpaid overtime. Also, everyone who wants to maintain their life-savings safe from inflation and other mishaps, needs to become a professor of economics, learning about markets and investments, such skills that were not needed otherwise. All this takes away people's time which could otherwise be spent on more important pursuits.

On the other hand, there is the unacceptable cost of government telling us what we may or may not do and have. In a socialist regime, you can for example save the time wasted in supermarkets choosing the best-priced toilet-paper and looking for "specials", because there is only one type! If your needs are standard, then you will be happier, but if you have special needs (say due to some skin condition), then you will be in painful trouble.

It seems to me however, that the socialist impositions on ordinary people are worse when it comes to retail products than when applied to infrastructure. Even then, we cannot get a different electricity-voltage, the NBN was threatening (before the change in government) to take away our copper phone-lines and we cannot get unfluorinated water.

Can we quantify any of these costs?

The only ethical solution I see, is to have voluntary public institutions instead of a government. This way, everyone can decide for themselves which is personally worse for them - the shortages of central planning or the exhausting and sickening aggressiveness of competition.

JKJ –

I've identified many of your logical errors, but so far I don't seem to be able to explain them to you in a way that's simple enough for you to understand. Indeed you seem to be trying hard not to understand.

What exactly is your definition of "rationally economise"?

"The public sector can’t do what the private sector does because it can’t identify how to combine the factors of production using profit and loss based on private ownership. "
Profit and loss are based on trade, not ownership.

Public ownership is not synonymous with central planning, and I think that fact invalidates a lot of your arguments.

'“Unfortunately there's no one answer”'
"Therefore we have no way of knowing that full socialism might not be a wonderful success – we just have to keep on trying it? "
I was about to type 'there's no way that conclusion can be logically derived from my statement' when I realised that (depending on your definition of "full socialism") there may be. If the results of thousands of rational decisions (and thousands more public opinion decisions) can be thought of as "full socialism" then it's theoretically possible. Though of course it's so unlikely that it's not really worth considering.

“'taxation'…. 'benefits all'
So why not make it 100%?"
Because the benefits are not proportionate to the tax rate. A 100% tax rate is obviously a bad thing because it would destroy all financial incentive. And with incentive in such short supply, it would become the limiting factor.

You've failed to comprehend that lack of incentive is not the only limiting factor. Indeed in a modern economy, it's not even the main limiting factor. Lack of opportunity holds us back more, and it is well worth sacrificing a little incentive to gain a lot of opportunity.

Loudmouth –
It may have escaped your attention, but no political movement has a monopoly on socialism. And even Karl Marx thought the process would be one of evolution not revolution.

Applying it piecemeal is easy: pick the good bits and apply them one at a time. Chuck the bad bits.

Whatever your view is on redistribution of wealth, there's no reason why it should correspond to any particular position on markets, nor be more or less authoritarian.

This idea is not new. Gough Whitlam was far more libertarian than his Liberal and National predecessors, and arguable also more pro market (as he cut tariffs by 25%).

If you'd bothered to read my previous posts on this thread instead of instinctively directing a mindless anti left rant at me, you'd have seen I STARTED by condemning the actions of the few who had unfairly discredited the Left in the eyes of many.
__________________________________________________________

Yuyutsu, most of the problems arise not from competition itself by from people being in a situation where they can't afford to lose. People may work harder when they can't afford to lose, but they work smarter when they can. One of the main drivers of innovation in Silicon Valley was that if a business fails, it's no big deal – it's easy enough to get well paid work elsewhere in the area.

Let’s start from common ground:
• full socialism is not desirable
• partial socialism, government economic intervention in any given case, is not necessarily more desirable
• therefore it needs justification
• the justification for a particular economic intervention cannot depend on merely assuming it’s better, more efficient, or more sustainable, because that’s what’s in issue
• we’re looking for a rational, i.e. logically valid, justification
• (spare us your ad hominem)

Where we differ is whether
• rational economic calculation is impossible under socialism, and therefore
• full socialism is not just undesirable in practice but impossible even in theory
• the same inherent defects that make full socialism impossible, inhere in partial socialism, which is similarly incapable of rational economic calculation for the same reasons except in so far as it relies on market operations that it displaces and corrupts
• partial socialism therefore cannot and does not ever represent greater economic efficiency compared to what would obtain under a voluntary dispensation
• socialism of any political kind does not ever confer net benefits on society. Being based on a coercive monopoly’s expropriation of productive property, it has no way of knowing whether its allocation of resources is efficient in terms of the judgments of the consumers of its services whose wants it is intending to satisfy.
• partial socialism is, like full socialism, only an exploitative process, by which coercive monopolists enrich themselves and their political favourites at the expense of the productive class whose work and risk produces everything they consume. It promotes relative impoverishment and corrupt exploitative political privilege.
• To be successful in achieving our aims, we must adjust our actions to certain non-negotiable limitations imposed by nature, physics, reality, logic.
This is the part the socialists keep not getting. The problem isn’t “ideology”, it’s reality. We can’t just make up any economic reality, or economic system, we want.

Since the general issue is in economics, some Economics 101:

Human action happens in conditions of scarcity. Time is limited. Many resources are limited. This is not caused by “capitalism”, it’s caused by nature.

(cont.)

The original, perpetual, definitive, economic problem is the need to allocate scarce resources so as to satisfy the most urgent and important human wants – as judged by the person taking the action (even if that want is to help others). To do so is to economise.

To allocate scarce resources so that less important wants are satisfied, while more important wants are neglected, is to waste scarce resources. Economising = more human wants can be satisfied for a given use of resources.

The original economic problem is how to economise resources and avoid waste. This underlies all debates about economic efficiency and sustainability. Both concepts have in common the idea of achieving the same end or output with less inputs; or more output with the same inputs.

Rational economising and rational economic calculation, mean being able to know or to calculate, in units of a lowest common denominator, that *ratio*; to know whether scarce resources are being used to satisfy the most urgent and important wants of the intended payers and consumers as judged by them, *considering what values had to be sacrificed for that end*.

Under a system of private ownership of the means of production, there is a direct connection between what the consumers want, and what the producers produce. If you buy a hammer from Bunnings for $5, then it is axiomatic that you value the hammer more than you value the $5 and vice versa for Bunnings.

Profit means entrepreneurs have combined the factors of production in such a way that the masses value the end result more than they valued the uncombined factors. They are telling the entrepreneur “You economised resources, we value the satisfaction we gained even higher than your profits.”

Loss means the capitalist has combined the factors of production in such a way that the masses value the end result less than they valued the uncombined factors. They are telling the entrepreneur “You wasted scarce resources that could have gone to satisfy our more urgent and important wants.”

The socialists have got the matter precisely backassward in equating profit with waste.

It is through profit and loss that the masses exercise direction over the whole process and structure of production, and cause even remote capital goods to answer to the end of satisfying the masses most urgent and important wants, as judged by them.

The same cannot be said of either full or partial socialism, which severs at the root any necessary economic connection between the satisfactions that the payers and consumers are trying to achieve, and what the producers are producing.

You cannot just assume that socialist enterprises will “work” equally as capitalist ones, because the definition of a successful outcome is not work, it’s want-satisfaction.

Capitalist enterprises can
a) know, and
b) calculate
what to produce and how to produce it by means of price signals and profit and loss.

But the whole purpose of any socialist enterprise, is to displace the operations of profit and loss so far as concerns the good being supplied, otherwise there’d be no reason for government to provide it.

For example, if the government is providing research and development, how does it know whether it’s providing
a) too much
b) too little, or
c) just the right amount,
relative to all the other human wants that could be satisfied with the same resources? That’s what you keep having trouble proving.

Your mission – should you choose to accept it – is to explain how government functionaries can do that, even assuming they are selfless angels seeking only the communal good.

All you’ve offered so far is arbitrary postulates. For example, how do you *rationally*
a) know, or
b) calculate,
the correct rate at which “incentive” should be destroyed, for “opportunity” to be encouraged - even assuming they are somehow dichotomous - to satisfy the wants in the subjective value scales of the masses who pay for and consume the government services in question?

If (since) you can’t do that, your actions will be self-defeating, even in your own terms.

Or, you could try re-thinking your assumptions, consider whether they might have been wrong, and try falsifying them instead? You’ll find it easier.

JKJ, I think I see the problem. Would I be correct in deducing that because of the self optimising nature of markets, you think that they always achieve the perfect result?

Reality is far more complicated. Markets are good, but the conditions they optimise for are not the conditions that provide the greatest benefit to society. Problems include:
• Markets are inherently biased to favour the interests of the rich over those of the poor.
• Often there are externalities, such as environmental effects, which are not included in the market price.
• Many individuals are in an uncertain position, so decisions are made according to perceived maximum risk rather than average risk.
• There is an inherent short term bias in human decision making, and this can easily lead to false economies. Higher interest rates add to the short term bias, and risk adds to interest rates.
• Production of goods often involves a large fixed cost and a small variable cost, but there is very little scope for the pricing structure to take that into account. Efforts to recoup the fixed cost can discourage sales/use of the product. This is mitigated by lower interest rates which enable the fixed cost to be recouped over a longer period.

All these problems can be addressed by government action.

Setting interest rates lower is a way of increasing opportunity. But lowering interest rates increases the amount of money going into the economy, so generally a cut in interest rates will have to be balanced by a rise in taxes (taking the money out of the economy again) if it's not to result in more inflation.
In reality it's more complicated because there's many other factors at play. But lower taxes only benefit those who are making money, while lowering interest rates actually makes making money easier. Opportunity beats incentive! But there are so many other variables that I can't give you a formula for determining when lower taxes are better than lower interest rates and vise versa. Sorry, reality just isn't that simple.

Aidan
You haven’t proved what’s in issue, so that’s a fail, I’m afraid.

You’re just back to arbitrary postulating again. There’s no need for me to deal with your further arguments because we have just disproved in summary what you’re assuming in detail. None of your points stand.

We know that government can “address” anything, in the sense of take action. What you haven’t been able to prove is that it can ever achieve what is in issue.

(What is “perfect” doesn’t come into it, because we’re talking about human beings.)

You *say* that you believe in partial socialism. But as we have just seen, partial socialists share all the same beliefs motivating full socialists. They believe that productive activity is intrinsically immoral and anti-social, that government action presumptively makes everything fairer and more productive without any rational justification for that assumption, and the solution to any social problem is for government to increase its violent interventions, i.e. keep moving in the direction of full socialism.

They never urge for the dismantling of the coercive that they or earlier generations of socialists have put up, and they never inquire whether the problems they’re trying to solve are caused by prior interventions.

Thus although they *say* they approve of a mixed economy, they have opposed it at every step, and constantly urge for new and further interventions, even when they have been a complete failure or disastrous and unjust, such as their monopoly control of banking and credit.

Then when faced with the proof of the anti-social irrationality of their belief system, they just repeat all their premises!

All socialists would repeat the genocides of the 20th century all over again, and for all the same reasons. For example, if all their wishes for global warming policy were granted, they would cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.

And then we get them popping up again pretending to speak on behalf of “society”.

You’re not society, you don’t speak for society, and you don’t know what’s better for people, than people. You speak for violent exploitation, that's all.

Dear Jardine,

<<the definition of a successful outcome is not work, it’s want-satisfaction.>>

In that case, creating new wants is a crime and those who do it should be hanged...

This includes advertising and manufacturing products with deliberate defects or even traps which limit their life-span. It probably also includes any obscuring of the fact that sugar has been added to foods. Competitive industry uses many subtle ways to create both fears and desires which were not there in the first place - and that's wrong.

Also, the desire to destroy one's competitors or at least to have an edge over them (instead of simply wanting to produce a more-satisfying product), produces a sick type of satisfaction as well as lots of waste. So many products for example are developed, which engineers invest their hearts and minds into, but never see the shelves despite the great effort, for abrupt competitive/market reasons that have nothing to do with the product's quality (or even the cost of its production).

I agree that profits are not waste, but the losses due to friction which are created in the process of competition (which is normally required for significant profits), are a waste.

On the other hand, an even better outcome than want-satisfaction is the reduction or elimination of wants, in other words the reduction or elimination of our fears and addictions.

I still reject socialism (full or partial) because its implementation requires violence (which also create frictions of a different kind), but if only a similar simplification of life could be achieved voluntarily, then wouldn't it be heaven?

Dear Aidan,

<<Yuyutsu, most of the problems arise not from competition itself by from people being in a situation where they can't afford to lose.>>

On the rare occasion of discovering a new continent (including the continent of silicon), there could be a short period when people can afford to lose, but when competition is applied long enough, society races back to the point of scarcity and then people again can no longer afford to lose.

Yuyutsu, your rely to Jardine makes no sense.First you say you want people to be hanged, then you say you're against violence.

And where did you get the stupid idea that socialism requires violence?

And why the Maltusian response to my comment? Why should work be scarce?

Dear Aidan,

Feeling that these people should be hanged is not the same as actually wanting to hang them - since this part was addressed to Jardine, I believe he would understand what I meant...

I would be very grateful if you could tell me how socialism can be implemented without violence. What's your idea for example on how to deal with such people who refuse to be social or to participate in the social game?

I didn't claim that work itself will be scarce, but as the boom which follows the initial discovery ends, remuneration for work would decline in real terms, to a point where it's hard to make ends meet.

JKJ, my sticking to your agenda would be futile, because your arguments rely on loosely defined concepts, and until your definitions are accurately defined, you're always going to have some wiggle room to declare my arguments to be circular.

I notice you still haven't supplied a coherent definition for "rationally economise".

I regard what we disagree on as what's in issue. You haven't proved it either.

And now you're ranting on about "partial socialism". I've never used that phrase to describe the policies I support. I don't object to your doing so, but the trouble is you're using the term "socialism" to describe the policies you oppose, and therefore making stupid statements about what you wrongly think I believe, such as that productive activity's intrinsically immoral and anti-social (I've never made any statement that even suggests that; your assumption is entirely down to your own prejudice).

You claim that I think that government action presumptively makes everything fairer and more productive without any rational justification for that assumption. In reality the opposite is the case – indeed my first post in this thread criticised those with an illogical opposition to markets and those who want nationalisation for its own sake rather than for efficiency gains.

Just to make it clear: that last statement of mine doesn't mean that I always support nationalisation BECAUSE I think it will lead to efficiency gains, but rather that I support nationalisation IN CASES WHERE it's likely to result in efficiency gains.

Regarding your claim that partial socialists believe "the solution to any social problem is for government to increase its violent interventions, i.e. keep moving in the direction of full socialism", there's no logical basis for this claim and it doesn't fit the facts. Which makes me wonder firstly: are you even aware that governments are capable of non-violent intervention? And secondly, why do you think those who've rejected the idea of replacing markets with central planning want to move in that direction? (Or was my earlier assumption about what you mean by "full socialism" incorrect – in which case what do you mean?)

JKJ (continued)

As for your claim that "They never urge for the dismantling of the coercive that they or earlier generations of socialists have put up" , can't you see the obvious reason why? Democracy! When the Right get elected they quickly dismantle any excesses of the Left, so there's no further need to urge it. There's far more reason to go after the policies of the right – which are just as likely to be coercive.

"Thus although they *say* they approve of a mixed economy, they have opposed it at every step"
Can you give a real world example of this? I can't think of anyone who says they want a mixed economy but doesn't.

"and constantly urge for new and further interventions, even when they have been a complete failure or disastrous and unjust, such as their monopoly control of banking and credit"
What monopoly control of banking and credit are you referring to?

"All socialists would repeat the genocides of the 20th century all over again, and for all the same reasons"
Can you supply a definition of "socialist" for which that is true?

"For example, if all their wishes for global warming policy were granted, they would cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. "
Firstly, that's only true if you include lunatic fringe solutions. Secondly doing nothing about the problem is also likely to cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. And thirdly, just as whether someone's on the left or right on economic issues has no bearing as to whether they're authoritarian or libertarian on social issues, so too does it not correspond with their stance on environmental issues. Look at the article if you require proof – Barry York seems to be as contemptuous of the environment as you are!

Aiden
Oh I didn’t realise that everything you were suggesting was to be voluntary.

Yuyutsu
Good luck with eliminating the creation of wants. Pretty women walking down the street create wants in me I admit; but let’s don’t hang them for their crime. Obviously the negative “externalities” of the ugly ones should be punished; I suppose Aidan will tell us there must be a special tax to subsidise the pretty ones of the sake of efficiency? Wheee! This economics stuff is easy!

For myself, I don’t desire a state of wantless detachment from this material world, and don’t regard it as ideal or morally superior. Besides, even the Great Guru in the Monastery of Heavenly Bliss has to get up from meditating every now and then to get a bite to eat or satisfy various material wants; and then where is his philosophy.

Dear Yuyutsu,

Socialism can be implemented by normal democratic means. It does not require people to be social. I'm not sure what you mean by "to participate in the social game".

Why, when productivity per person has grown so much faster than population, do you think remuneration for work would decline in real terms to a point where it's hard to make ends meet?
________________________________________________________________________________________

Jardine

"Oh I didn’t realise that everything you were suggesting was to be voluntary. "
What do you mean?

Socialism doesn't remove the need for laws, but that need is there with or without socialism.

Voluntary socialism, I'd like to see that.

In the Ukrainian elections yesterday, the Communist Party is expected to poll less than 5 % of the vote. Probably what it would have got if elections had ever been held under 'socialism'.

Any better society has to be built on democracy, with all its uncertainties.

It's going to be a long road.

Joe

You still haven't told us how socialism can be implemented without violence?

At what stage short of actually shooting people would you renounce the use of violence to enforce the socialist policies you advocate?

JDJ

Can I please elaborate on your last question:

"At what stage short of actually shooting people, setting up vast networks of Gulags, declaring millions to be insane and locking them away for life, exiling entire ethnic groups as inherently fascist (again by the millions), would you renounce the use of violence to enforce the socialist policies you advocate?"

If socialism is 'for the people', even for just the largest classes in society and excluding others from any political process [see above], then it does seem to be little more than fascism in the hands of those largest classes - or the Party of the largest classes - or the Leader of the Party of the largest classes. No, Hitler wasn't being ironic when he called his party the "German National-Socialist Workers' Party', because that's just what it was: a fascist-socialist party with the backing of the workers.

Joe

Loudmouth,

After what the Soviets did, I'm not surprised. As I said in my original post in this thread, I think the biggest problem is that [the left has] been discredited by those with an illogical opposition to markets and by those who want nationalization for its own sake rather than for efficiency gains.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Jardine,

WTF do you mean? Why do you think changing economic policy in a way that favours those who aren't already rich would result in violence? Are you anticipating the rich literally hiring mercenaries to prevent a tax increase?

Whatever it is you're anticipating, I don't think there's any need for a change in law enforcement procedure. Existing regulations allowing cops to use reasonable force but preventing them from using excessive force should be sufficient. Or if you're referring to sentencing, it's simple enough: the punishment should fit the crime.

Stop trying to evade the question and just have the intellectual honesty to answer it.

What if the people you're trying to force into submission and obedience don't agree? Do you agree with using violence to force them, or not?

It's no use appealing to 'reasonable force' because
a) what is reasonable is precisely what's in issue - more circularity on your part
b) if your would-be subject/slave doesn't agree, the state's armed goons will escalate it. Won't they? If he uses weapons to defend himself against their aggression, they will use weapons back and escalate with a view to forcing him to obey.

Won't they?

So at what stage short of actually shooting people do you renounce the use of violence to enforce your socialist slave philosophy? Answer the questions.

Jardine -
"Stop trying to evade the question and just have the intellectual honesty to answer it."
You try to evade questions by ignoring them and telling me to stop evading one that I genuinely didn't understand, and complain about my intellectual honesty when you've ignored the answers I've previously given!

"What if the people you're trying to force into submission and obedience don't agree? Do you agree with using violence to force them, or not?"
I AM NOT TRYING TO FORCE PEOPLE INTO SUBMISSION AND OBEDIENCE!

Now I why can't you comprehend the above?
Is it simply that you're too stupid?
Is it that you're trying to fool readers into thinking that everyone who doesn't share your economic philosophy must support violence, but you've failed to realise that I'm not stupid enough to let you?
Is it that you're just too lazy to consider the possibility you may be wrong?

(The above isn't merely rhetorical – I would appreciate an answer (though better still would be to remedy the fault).

I don't have a slave philosophy. On the contrary, I favour conditions where there's more high value work available and people's standard of living is less dependant on money.

In principle, I try not to be part of any "ism" - except vegetarianism. I don't force that onto others. I don't want the eating of meat forced onto myself.

But my dreams and my happiness do require a "larger" group of people around me who share a similar outlook - as I am VERY community minded.

In perspective: Where I live we have a business group, funded by a (council imposed compulsory levy) - with the groups executive committee having full rights to do whatever they wish with the funds and getting $105,000 per year - a form of socialism and many on the committee are well off real estate agents and property developers.

Other community groups have to raise all of their own money. One time I spent 12 hours at a fundraising event for a group I'm involved with.

Generating interest can be difficult, in a very conservative society - but when people have seen projects (I've undertaken) that came to fruition - many people have been impressed. Recently I received a very good newspaper story.

You can actually force people into socialism like I mentioned above in Australia (sounds strange I know). My attitude is to be positive, and I do my best to get as many volunteers on board with not for profit groups I'm involved with.

I really don't want to sit around with a few others drinking tea and coffee.

You answer my prior questions first. They prove there’s no argument for me to answer.

All your retorts are either ad hominem, or they presuppose that you’ve established what you have failed to defend.

As to the economics, you have not been able to defend the proposition that the state can do *anything* more economically efficiently.

As to the ethics, you're entire philosophy is built on advocating aggressive violence, because that's how the state
a) gets its revenue, and
b) enforces all the policies you advocate.

1. Ethics

"I AM NOT TRYING TO FORCE PEOPLE INTO SUBMISSION AND OBEDIENCE!"

Then answer the question please: at what stage in the enforcement of the policies you advocate do you renounce the enforcement of them? A cop goes to arrest someone. You say go ahead. The guy doesn’t accept being forced into submission. The cop goes to tazer him. And you say ... what? Go ahead? Or stop?

Or you were confused and didn't understand that, by advocating policies, you were advocating the enforcement of policies, and therefore the initiation of aggressive violence or threats?

Explain please.

2. Economics
"[the left has] been discredited by those with an illogical opposition to markets and by those who want nationalization for its own sake rather than for efficiency gains."

But you haven't been able to establish that the state is capable of *any* efficiency gains, rather than zero-sum expropriations based on aggressive violence.

All you've offered are slogans, as if these prove your case for you: "infrastructure", "monopoly", “cheaper finance”, and so on. We have seen how these crumble on critical examination because you either can't distinguish what you say government should not be providing from what you say it should, or assume what’s in issue.

Your entire efficiency argument turns on this point, which you have no way of knowing or calculating: by what rational criterion how do you know whether government is providing too much, too little, or just the right amount of anything it’s providing, in terms of the subjective valuations of the payers for and intended consumers of the service?

Jardine,

"You answer my prior questions first. They prove there’s no argument for me to answer."
On the contrary, questions that have a false assumption built into them prove either laziness, stupidity or dishonesty when you continue to ask them after I've pointed out that false assumption. I know this looks like an ad hominem but what other explanation is there for your behaviour?

"Then answer the question please: at what stage in the enforcement of the policies you advocate do you renounce the enforcement of them? A cop goes to arrest someone. You say go ahead. The guy doesn’t accept being forced into submission. The cop goes to tazer him. And you say ... what? Go ahead? Or stop?"
I'm not trying to force those policies to become law. But when the policies are law, the law should be enforced. There's normally no need to use violence to do so, but I believe the current situation, which I have no intention of changing, is that if the suspect uses violence then the police have a right to use violence to protect themselves and others.

"But you haven't been able to establish that the state is capable of *any* efficiency gains, rather than zero-sum expropriations based on aggressive violence."
You haven't been willing to consider that the state is capable of any efficiency gains. And can you stop the ridiculous rhetoric about violence? Property rights are based on the right to enforce the restrictions on others using or accessing that property, but you don't see me banging on about property being based on violence even though exactly the same argument applies.

You've admitted the market process isn't perfect, and I've identified some ways in which government ownership can sometimes deliver better value results. But rather than giving them serious consideration, you instinctively rant against them to ridiculous extremes (like defending private monopolies) and label them slogans!

...

If you started thinking critically rather than getting your opinions from the morons at mises.org, you'd see that my points are very real. Supplying the infrastructure needed to grow the economy is not something where you can rely on the normal competition process to ensure the benefits of working more efficiently are passed onto the end users. Cheaper finance is effectively cutting out the middle man – bypassing the banks who would otherwise take a profit without a corresponding decrease in risk. And since interest rates are set to control inflation, sovereign currency issuing governments have the additional option of lending at a lower rate to finance projects that will have a significant deflationary effect.

"Your entire efficiency argument turns on this point, which you have no way of knowing or calculating: by what rational criterion how do you know whether government is providing too much, too little, or just the right amount of anything it’s providing, in terms of the subjective valuations of the payers for and intended consumers of the service?"
It appears you don't have a way of knowing or calculating it either – you just assume that anything the government provides is too much!

You're also conflating the benefits of trade and ownership. It's absolutely true that If you buy a hammer from Bunnings for $5, you value the hammer more than you value the $5 and vice versa for Bunnings. But the axiom would still be true if you bought it at Australia Post, or if the government owned the hammer manufacturer.

I am generally in favour of free trade. Exceptions do exist: I generally support regulating the sale of dangerous or harmful things, and I support some regulation of service provision to enable and encourage cross subsidisation to occur. I also support labour market regulation and compliance with international sanctions. But apart from that, I think everyone should be able to trade freely with whoever they want, and I oppose GST. So please respond to my stated opinions rather than categorising me and responding to what you think a socialist would think!

Dear Aidan,

<<Socialism can be implemented by normal democratic means.>>

I know this, but democracy means that a majority can impose its way of life over minorities and individuals, using as much force as necessary: this is unacceptable.

You have just responded to Jardine that "I believe the current situation, which I have no intention of changing, is that if the suspect uses violence then the police have a right to use violence to protect themselves and others". Well then, yes it is the current situation, but if the "suspect", that is the person who refuses to obey the regime (democratic or otherwise, makes no difference), is being attacked by police for no other reason and uses violence only in self defence against them, then this makes the current situation unacceptable.

<<It does not require people to be social. I'm not sure what you mean by "to participate in the social game".>>

So what do you do when people refuse to even talk with you, or speak your language, or register through your administration, or use the money you print or the infrastructure you provide - insisting on being left alone and using their own instead?

<<Why, when productivity per person has grown so much faster than population, do you think remuneration for work would decline in real terms to a point where it's hard to make ends meet?>>

Due to genetic instincts, when there is plenty, organisms breed and multiply themselves indefinitely.

Though I doubt it, I wouldn't argue whether it's possible to keep economic growth indefinitely growing faster than population - this is because even if somehow it is, then the side-effects are terrible: a spiralling number of humans along with a spiralling dependency on higher and yet higher technology, designed to compensate for that number. This is certainly not the kind of world I want to live in.

"Questions that have a false assumption built into them"

I notice you didn't have the temerity to stipulate what that false assumption supposedly is.

What false assumption?

Jardine –

I'm referring to your false assumptions that I'm trying to force people into submission and obedience, and that the policies I advocate would require the use of violence to enforce.

And not only did I stipulate them, I explained why they were false.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Yuyutsu,

Most democratic countries, including Australia, have strict laws to prevent that sort of incident occurring. If those laws are broken it is indeed unacceptable, but nothing to do with economic policy.

But I do agree we need protection against the tyranny of the majority. That's why we have a constitution.

"So what do you do when people refuse to even talk with you, or speak your language, or register through your administration, or use the money you print or the infrastructure you provide - insisting on being left alone and using their own instead?"
If they refuse to speak your language or talk at all, nothing – people have a right to free speech and a right to remain silent.

They are required to use the money to pay tax (if they meet the criteria for paying tax) but apart from that they're free to use any currency they want if the people they're trading with agree.

If they don't use the infrastructure, so what? They're not compelled to. In most cases they're not compelled to register for anything either.

There are a few exceptions, such as for the purpose of child protection, but generally if people want to be left alone they can be.

"Due to genetic instincts, when there is plenty, organisms breed and multiply themselves indefinitely."
Humans have (and use) tools to control their own fertility. It's not "where there is plenty" that the population growth rate is very high, it's where people consider it to be underpopulated. The difference may be subtle, but it's very important.

Dear Aidan,

At present in Australia, if you refuse to talk or cooperate, they forcibly throw you in a mental institution and certainly they take your children away. If you refuse to tell them that you have children born to you, they would also take you to jail. If you give birth to your children in alternate hospitals which you built yourself with alternate doctors of your own community, then they put both yourself and the doctors in jail and take your children too. If you print and use your own currency for what's deemed as "professional services", then you're expected to pay tax in Australian dollars and if you don't pay because you have none, then they put you in jail as well. If you dig your own dams for water, your own roads, your own power stations, etc. then you're also in big trouble with the law. If you try to protect yourself, including by creating your own police, then you are faced with heavy charges on guns laws. You would also not be allowed to leave and enter the country without talking and cooperating with the regime, even a democratic one.

So you say that this has "nothing to do with economic policy", but socialism is not only about economics, it's about creating a society that works together, forcibly if necessary (also, using your own currency IS an economic issue).

The Australian constitution as it stands, offers no protection to individuals and minorities who want to have nothing to do with the general Australian society. Now I wouldn't even ask for such protection because I don't think that I deserve it if I don't want anything to do with you, but the minimum I should expect is to not be attacked by the government of the day: and currently I would be attacked.

Wherever there is enough food and no wars or epidemics, human population would grow. True, the rate may not be high, so it will take a bit longer, but still eventually more technology would be called for to compensate for the increase in population.

Aidan, you’re displaying total confusion.

You do understand, don’t you, that if you initiate attacking someone, tazering them, handcuffing them, shooting them, striking them with a truncheon, or locking them in a cage, that is all aggressive violence?

The law classifies it as aggressive violence, and you need a lawful excuse to do it. The lawful excuse doesn’t mean it’s not aggressive violence; it means the state excuses it.

Similarly, *the threat* of aggressive violence is itself violence if the aggressor is able to carry it out.

The law recognises the threat as being as bad as actual violence. That’s why assault (i.e. threatening to strike someone without actually hitting them) is classified on the same footing as battery (actually hitting them), and why conspiracy and inciting violence are legally as culpable as actual violence.

If a man threatens to stab a woman if she won’t agree to have sex with him, so she agrees and he has sex with her, according to your theory that’s not violence because there was “no need to use violence”. But THE THREAT IS VIOLENCE.

By the same token, if to enforce socialist policies, the police actually *or threaten* to arrest, block, manhandle, handcuff, tazer, strike or cage anyone, of course it’s aggressive violence. It’s absurd confusion or dishonesty to deny it.

“but I believe the current situation, which I have no intention of changing, is that if the suspect uses violence then the police have a right to use violence to protect themselves and others.”

You are totally confusing defensive and aggressive action. The police won’t stop at “protecting themselves” because that was never the primary purpose. They will continue escalating the initiating of violence up to and including shooting or caging people until they have forced them into submission and obedience, THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT.

If the state’s purpose was defensive, obviously the police could 'protect themselves' by not initiating the aggressive violence, and provoking the defensive violence, in the first place.

“But when the policies are law, the law should be enforced. “

So you have just *admitted* that you *support* the use of aggressive violence to force people into submission and obedience, because that’s how and why the law is enforced; and your case it will be for the sake of socialist policies.

“There's normally no need to use violence to do so”
The threat of violence is violence; and this fact underlies ALL law and policy.

People’s obedience doesn’t mean they consent, it means they know resisting the State is futile and they must risk ruining their life and being caged and raped if they don’t submit and obey. You’re proving my point, not yours. If there was no need to use violence, then obviously there’d be no need for a policy, so you’re contradicting yourself.

So thank you for conceding the general issue. You DO BELIEVE IN FORCING PEOPLE INTO SUBMISSION AND OBEDIENCE – it’s the basis of your entire political ideology.

(It's also the basis for the inputs and outputs of government.)

But if you renounce violence at some point in the enforcement process, then at that point all your policies become voluntary and you renounce socialism and lose the argument.

PS Male victims of rape outnumber female victims because of the high likelihood and rate of rape in prison. Since this is already illegal, either the government can stop it and chooses not to, or it can’t. So either way you must admit it’s an intrinsic part of the threat and punishment regime you support and advocate to enforce obedience and submission to your socialist policies. Your self-image as a non-violent person is completely false.

Thus we have established – with your admissions and self-contradictions – that it is not false to assume that you support aggressive violence to support people into submission and obedience to your socialist policies.

‘You don’t see me banging on about property being based on violence even though exactly the same argument applies”

You’re confusing aggressive and defensive violence. If you sit in your house enjoying your property, you’re not intrinsically being violent to anyone. If you or the cops throw out an intruder who tries to steal your computer, it’s not aggressive violence, it’s defensive violence because the intruder is initiating the violence by invading your property without your consent. Socialism advocates aggressive violence i.e. the forcible overriding of *consensual* transactions such as all the ones you mentioned.

““But the axiom would still be true if you bought it at Australia Post, or if the government owned the hammer manufacturer.”

You’ve just lost the entire argument.

1.
According to your theory, there is no way that government can be demonstrated to be more efficient than the private sector because “the axiom would be true” either way.
a) assuming what is in issue = fallacy
b) self-contradiction – you disclaimed circular argument.

2.
If your theory was true, full communism would have just as economically efficient as capitalism. It wouldn’t have made any economic difference whether government provides something, or the private sector does, because the axiom would be true either way.
Complete economic illiteracy.

So even if your idiot theory was granted, all you would have proved is that there’s no justification for government providing anything, because it doesn’t make any difference: “the axiom would still be true”.

The deep structure of your argument is only this laughable circularity:
“We need government to provide certain services for efficiency’s sake”
“How do you know it’s more efficient?”
“Because it is.”
“How do you know?”
“Because if it’s infrastructure, it means government is more efficient at providing it.”
“But how do you know it’s more efficient at providing it?”
Because the private sector can’t do it as well.”
“Why not?”
“Because government is more efficient at doing it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it is.”

That’s all you’ve got with all your points - round and round and round.

Aidan,

Referring to JKJ's:

"So you have just *admitted* that you *support* the use of aggressive violence to force people into submission and obedience, because that’s how and why the law is enforced; and your case it will be for the sake of socialist policies."

This is always the first fire cracker JKJ reaches for in his mini arsenal to toss at an opponent. We've literally lost count of the number of times JKJ has parachuted into a debate on this forum and accused fellow posters of supporting govt violence....it's what he does.

I haven't been following this thread closely, but it's odds on that he's also accused you of "fallacious argument", ad hominem, "appealing to absent authority" - challenged you to prove him wrong, usually itemising points or you to answer, told you you've lost the argumnt and he's the WINNER!

It's part of his generic delivery - and is deployed in every debate he gets into.

Good luck with that : )

Yuyutsu,

I did mention that there were exceptions such as for the purpose of child protection, so you really don't need to elaborate on that.

"If you print and use your own currency for what's deemed as "professional services", then you're expected to pay tax in Australian dollars and if you don't pay because you have none, then they put you in jail as well."
Aren't they more likely to confiscate and auction your assets to raise the money?

And if "wherever there is enough food and no wars or epidemics, human population would grow", how do you explain Japan?

Enough food and no wars or epidemics are actually slowing factors for population growth, as they address the most important reason why people want large families.
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Jardine, you seem to be the only confused one.

The bit about the threat of violence is correct and I was aware of it (but with a 350 word limit, I can't include every detail). I admit I wasn't aware police arresting someone legally constitutes violence.

Anyway, you seem to be of the view that everyone who's not an anarchist is trying to force people into submission and obedience.

Is that your view?
And if it isn't, do you regard all the supporters of the status quo as trying to force people into submission and violence?

Your attitude reminds me of a certain light bulb joke:
http://users.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/listbulb.html

Dear Aidan,

<<I did mention that there were exceptions such as for the purpose of child protection, so you really don't need to elaborate on that.>>

I have given some deep thought to the issue of children and arrived at far-reaching consequences. I am willing to share them with you, but I have no time for that right now.

<<Aren't they more likely to confiscate and auction your assets to raise the money?>>

Whichever they do first:

If I accept the validity of their "auction", in a currency which I do not recognise, then myself, my family and my community would either starve to death - and/or have no space to roam hence will be jailed wherever we go for "trespassing".

And if we don't accept the validity, then bulldosers of the new "legal owner" would come attacking our property, then do we resist them and be killed or go to jail, or do we end up again starving or jailed for trespassing? ... or perhaps locked up in a mental institute for acting "irrationally"...

Either way, it's violent and unacceptable.

<<how do you explain Japan?>>

They have food but ran out of space, building there is very expensive. Also, they have the highest dependence on electronic high-tech in the world, including heavy reliance on robots - that's disgusting and not how I want to live.

You asked Jardine:

<<Anyway, you seem to be of the view that everyone who's not an anarchist is trying to force people into submission and obedience.

Is that your view?>>

It is my view anyway: anyone who believes that it is acceptable for anyone (or any group) to rule over others, is violent. Note however that:

1) Defending oneself, one's family and one's society does not amount to ruling over others, because the focus is on [protecting] ME/US, rather than on [controlling] THEM.

2) When people voluntarily agree to cooperate and be bound by some constitution, then this also does not amount to ruling over others, because we have freely volunteered to become "we" with them.

Jardine, your ridiculous accusation of my having lost the argument shows a serious deficiency in logic on your part.

Your statement that "According to your theory, there is no way that government can be demonstrated to be more efficient than the private sector because 'the axiom would be true' either way" is FALSE. What it shows, which is what I claimed, is that the benefits depend on trade not private ownership. It doesn't say anything about the relative merits of public and private ownership. Just because it can't be used as the basis of a comparison doesn't mean it precludes a comparison.

"a) assuming what is in issue = fallacy"
Well if the axiom doesn't hold if either the shop or the manufacturer is owned by the government, perhaps you can point out why not?

But I think the fallacious assumption was entirely on your part, as you assumed it to be a claim about the relative merits of the public and private sector, when all it was was a rebuttal of your argument.

"b) self-contradiction – you disclaimed circular argument."
I did not make a circular argument, I merely pointed out a flaw in your argument.

"If your theory was true, full communism would have just as economically efficient as capitalism"
FALSE. The axiom says nothing about economic efficiency. But full communism would prevent competition, so the hammer would be likely to cost more, so economic efficiency would be lower.

"It wouldn’t have made any economic difference whether government provides something, or the private sector does, because the axiom would be true either way"
If it's the same thing at the same price (and not subsidised) then yes.

"Complete economic illiteracy"
No, complete economic illiteracy would be to assume that the public sector and the private sector can always provide the same thing at the same price. An example is your next claim below:
"So even if your idiot theory was granted, all you would have proved is that there’s no justification for government providing anything, because it doesn’t make any difference: 'the axiom would still be true'. "

Intriguing how this thread has gone.

Maybe there are two sorts of 'Left', or ex-'Left':

* one thinks of Socialism or Marxism, as a promised Utopia, a thoroughly-thought-out body of principles which lays down what to do and how to get there; which promises certainty, a rounding-off of all the rough ends of history, and - at last - something to embed oneself into. In other words, a religion, something to be defended no matter what, the rituals of which one must accentuate precisely when it seems to have failed, and when it is attacked by un-believers and worse, ex-believers: socialism thus provides certainty, doubt is the enemy;

and

* the other has been more interested in an ideological path which gives hope that oppression and exploitation and human misery can be countered, and which has turned to Socialism for the practical answers, and for the best ways to put those into practice; but who (eventually) move away from 'false gods' or from 'socialist' situations which go bad, in order to find something else which might work better, to achieve the hoped-for ends; to such practitioners, the goals are important but the means, the practicalities, the realities, are morally more so, and when situations go bust, as seems to have happened in every case of 'socialism' to date, they look somewhere else. To them, socialism is not a religion, it is or it isn't a practical guide to a better world, and if it doesn't work, it gets junked. In the process, such 'Leftists' come to tolerate uncertainty, openness and incompleteness, as ever-present factors. Such people are loyal to no particular ideology, each one must 'prove' itself in terms of its efficacy in improving the world genuinely, even if incrementally.

Just reflecting on the above posts :)

Joe

Aidan

1. Ethics
“you seem to be the only confused one. The bit about the threat of violence is correct and I was aware of it ... I admit I wasn't aware police arresting someone legally constitutes violence.”

So you accuse me of being confused even while you admit that you yourself were confused and wrong.

(If you had thought about whether the actions of the police were violence, without assuming that the state has a right to do what is a crime of violence for everyone else, it would have been obvious that threatening to, or physically stopping or seizing people, let alone at gunpoint, are violence.)

“Anyway, you seem to be of the view ... trying to force people into submission and violence?”

Stop trying to squirm out it.

You said that you don’t support using aggressive violence to force people into submission and obedience.

We have now established - with your agreement - that what you support as the basis of every policy you advocate, are in fact using aggressive violence to force people into submission and obedience, including having people hounded, threatened, handcuffed, tasered, caged, shot and raped; and that it is the basis of your political philosophy – because if it wasn’t, you’d be a libertarian - and it defines the ethical issues between us.

Once you explicitly acknowledge that that is true, I’ll answer your questions based on it.

If you don’t acknowledge it’s true, then perhaps you can explain what you have evaded four times: at what point do you renounce your support for aggressive violence, and at that point renounce socialism?

2.
Economics

“... if the axiom doesn't hold if ... the shop or the manufacturer is owned by the government, perhaps you can point out why not?” …
“What it shows, which is what I claimed, is that the benefits depend on trade not private ownership.”

(cont.)

All these points are economically related:
the use of coerced versus consensual transactions, the ability to determine whether exchanges were mutually beneficial, the ability to determine the ratio of costs to benefits; whether (net) benefits depend on trade or private ownership; and whether government can do anything more economically efficiently than would obtain under a voluntary dispensation.

To understand why, let’s go back to first principles. Efficiency refers to the relation between inputs and outputs. Okay? Fair enough?

(And since what is less rather than more efficient cannot (cet. par.) be more sustainable, therefore if the argument of government’s supposed greater economic efficiency fails, the argument it can rationally promote sustainability also fails.)

To make a rational proof of efficiency, we need to compare the *ratio* of inputs to outputs for given ends.

For example: the Ford does 100 km per 10L of fuel (or per $10), while the Holden does 120 km for the same fuel or money cost, THEREFORE the Holden is more fuel efficient.

But if we just say "Fords do some things better” or “because only a lazy, stupid or dishonest person could disagree” or “because the objective should not be to freeze out either Ford or Holden” or “Ford has dedicated staff” = not a rational proof of efficiency in that case.

Okay? Fair enough?

For you to make a rational proof that government can do some things more efficiently therefore, you would need three things that you haven’t been providing, and I don’t think you can:
1. Given ends. In the example above, we assumed that you and I share the goal of wanting to achieve greater fuel efficiency.
But you can't demonstrate that assumption of given ends in any question in which government provides a “service”, because obviously if you have to threaten to shoot, cage and rape people into obeying you, in order to a) fund or b) ‘consume’ the service, you can’t demonstrate that the ends you are trying to achieve are shared by everyone who has to be forced or threatened into achieving it: in other words, by society.

2. You would have to show that the government use of resources to provide a particular good or service is *absolutely* efficient, i.e. that the money costs are less than the money benefits. This is at least possible, by looking at their accounts. Government departments can and do meet that standard.
However often of course, the cost will be greater, because that’s the whole point of having government provide the service. They’re not trying to make a money profit, which is valid – i.e. assuming aggressive violence is okay to to get what you want.
But it’s not sound, from the PoV of demonstrating “efficiency”. A money loss demonstrates a failure of your argument either under this point 2. – absolute efficiency - or under point 1. - given ends.

3. You would have to show that the government use of resources is *relatively* efficient, i.e. compared to capitalism. This is impossible for at least three reasons.
i) You then have all the problems of point 1. all over again, i.e. whether the public interest *really is* identical with whatever the government says it is.
ii) You have the socialist incentive problem (need to demonstrate that public officials would value public goods the same as their own)
iii) then there’s the economic calculation problem (how can you establish *exchange ratios* equal to or better than the market, if your funding and/or consumption are based on coercion?
How are you even going to know what the exchange ratios should be (Bunnings/PO problem? Such evaluations are a) subjective, b) zillionesque, c) dispersed throughout the population, and d) constantly changing.

You have all the same economic problems as full socialism.

(There are other impossibilities, but perhaps you could start by dealing with these?)

If you read the dialogue between me and David McMullen above, you will see that he went out backwards failing to defend the argument you’re putting up now.

And finally, even if you were able to get through all those baffles, you would only have established that government could equal, not better, the efficiency of the market = fail.

All the points you raised, about infrastructure, monopoly, externalities etc. assume that you don’t have the above-numbered problems; and you assume that government has nothing to do with causing any of the problems you’re trying to solve. So it’s not necessary for me to deal with these invalid assumptions unless you can get to square one, and establish that government can economise more efficiently in anything in the first place.

At best, your arguments against capitalism would only amount to saying that it’s not perfect, or not as you would like it to be, in which case, why don’t you provide the services you think others should, with your own capital? Why violence?

Now think of it this way. If the socialists are right, the enormous economic and humanitarian disasters under full socialism, and the fact they kept repeating every time it was tried, are just some kind of strange coincidence, nothing to do with the socialist project of public control of the means of production. But if rational economising is impossible under socialism, that has explaining power, doesn’t it?

We have established that:
- all political socialism is based on and intrinsically depends on aggressive violence
- all species of political socialism cannot rationally economise.

These means that all socialist claims to stand for a more caring or compassionate society or socially just or progressive society are completely bogus, as are all its claims whatsoever to stand for greater economic or pragmatic efficiency or sustainability. These ideas are every bit as irrational as reading birds' gizzards, sacrificing virgins, or selling indulgences: worse, because they are based on the idea that aggressive violence and capital destructionism are the key to a more humane and prosperous society.

Jardine –
Firstly let's get one thing straight: I do not support rape under any circumstances.
Please apologise for that vicious lie!

I support the ability of the police to use reasonable force to enforce the law.
Do you oppose the ability of the police to use reasonable force to enforce the law?
If so, what would you do instead?

I do not support the use of aggressive violence in other situations.
I do not support any form of socialism that would (IMO) be likely to cause or require more aggressive violence.

All transactions in the example were consensual. I do not support coerced transactions except for the purpose of law enforcement.

You have a very simplistic view of efficiency. Reality is rather more complicated, and the car that's most efficient on the freeway may not be the one that's more efficient in city traffic.

And if Holdens are more efficient than Fords, you can't logically claim that it's because they have better brakes!

Point 1 is irrelevant because it does not involve any coerced transactions.
Point 2 is far more complicated than it sounds because there are a lot of externalities which should be taken into account for an accurate result.
Point 3 DOESN'T assume that the public interest is identical to what the government says it is, but rather that it's closer to what the government says it is than to the 'do nothing' option.

There are some perfectly logical reasons why things make sense for governments to fund when they don't make sense for individuals to fund. The first, as I've mentioned, is that there are externalities that should be taken into account. The second is that individuals are far more credit constrained. The third is that the human lifespan is limited – and the working life even more so. Governments should plan for the future.

Jardine (continued)
"At best, your arguments against capitalism would only amount to saying that it’s not perfect, or not as you would like it to be, in which case, why don’t you provide the services you think others should, with your own capital?"
For a start, I don't have access to that much capital!
"Why violence? "
My support of the ability of police to use reasonable force to enforce the law has nothing to do with my economic philosophy, how ever much you try to claim otherwise.

"Now think of it this way. If the socialists are right, the enormous economic and humanitarian disasters under full socialism, and the fact they kept repeating every time it was tried, are just some kind of strange coincidence, nothing to do with the socialist project of public control of the means of production."
They're not coincidence at all, they're the result of preventing markets from working.

"We have established that:
- all political socialism is based on and intrinsically depends on aggressive violence
- all species of political socialism cannot rationally economise. "
We have established neither of those things – you just keep restating them and ignoring the evidence to the contrary.

This topic heading does not include "21st Right". These people exist out there.

As I've said before on another page, that if you don't fit to the categories or standards of left or right wing movements, you are often attacked and made to defend your credentials as you don't fit into their standards, having a range of opinions, be in a minority group or be very individual.

That can be for example - having strong views on the environment (but not being a left/right wing person). For example if you read the Greens view on population policy and the environment is weak (in my view) http://greens.org.au/policies/population and says things like:

"Our environmental impact and ecological footprint is not determined by population numbers alone" despite existing people in Australia having a high environmental impact via day to day living (then consider birth here and those moving here for commercial reasons). This supposedly coming from what is viewed as a '21st left' political party?

Also minority groups (right wing) can force activity onto others. Where I live we have a business group, funded by a compulsory council business levy, the group's executive (of about five people) with a total of $105,000) per year had their first big project as a giant 5.5m high metal cube as an entrance statement.

A 'large' number of people objected (a full page of letters to our local newspaper, a public meeting held and I contacted the Advertiser Newspaper and got a half page newspaper story on the topic.

There is too much force worldwide, but simply avoiding discussion on what could be good for a community, and not considering a vast array of ideas and not working together isn't helpful either.

Aidan

1. Ethics
So we have now established by your own admission that you think it’s okay for people to be physically attacked, humiliated, handcuffed, electrocuted, caged, shot and killed so as to force them into submission and obedience with your political beliefs, for entirely peaceable and consensual transactions with private property that are none of your business.

As government either cannot or will not stop rape in prison, the high risk of it is IN FACT an intrinsic part of a sentence of imprisonment. Therefore the fact that you feel a moral abhorrence for rape doesn’t mean you don’t support rape and the threat of rape in fact, on an industrial scale, for political ends. It means you need to *re-think* your political beliefs!

You need to take responsibility for the fact that you support inflicting and threatening real actual aggressive physical violence including rape, on REAL PEOPLE. Your sense of disassociation from the violence you support inflicting, your factually false belief that you don’t support aggressive violence, is based on factually false beliefs that you have explicitly defended, that
1. violence isn’t violence if the state does it, which it is,
2. aggressive violence is morally okay if the state does it, which it isn’t. The very fact that you tried to squirm out of admitting it, proves that you know it’s morally wrong.

All you’ve tried to do, as concerns your ethical argument, is pretend the facts don’t exist: violence isn’t violence, or isn’t bad, if the state does it. Now just think for a sec. Where do you think you might have got these doggedly inflexibly plainly false brainwashed beliefs? Don’t try to turn the argument to my personality. Think! What agency might have been responsible for planting and cultivating these factually false and immoral beliefs in your mind? You don’t even agree with them yourself!

2. Economics
“Point 1 is irrelevant because it does not involve any coerced transactions”

There, see, you’re doing it again?! You’ve gone back to trying to pretend that violence isn’t violence when the state does it.

(cont.)

Aidan, the threat of enforcement underlies ALL law and policy. Policy means police-y. It means what you’re going to get the police to use the state’s claim of a legal monopoly of aggressive violence, to force and threaten people into obeying.

Therefore you are unable to establish that any given end you are trying to achieve by socialist policy is shared by society given society have to be forced into it by threats of being attacked, caged and raped.

Therefore that’s a complete fail on Point 1 – given ends.

“Point 2 is far more complicated than it sounds because there are a lot of externalities which should be taken into account for an accurate result.”

You haven’t
a) taken any externalities into account in units of a lowest common denominator, or
b) demonstrated that government is capable of, or representative in doing so
c) demonstrated the absolute efficiency in issue. You’re just ASSUMING it again.

Therefore that’s a complete fail on point 2 – absolute efficiency.

“Point 3 DOESN'T assume that the public interest is identical to what the government says it is, but rather that it's closer to what the government says it is than to the 'do nothing' option.”

Aidan, the issue is precisely whether the public interest is closer to what the government says it is, than what voluntary society says it is. So you’re assuming what is in issue, so you’re arguing in a circle – again! And you disclaimed circular argument, so you’re contradicting yourself again.

NB the alternative option isn’t “do nothing”. The alternative is PEACEABLE, NON-VIOLENT, CONSENSUAL PRODUCTIVE transactions based on liberty and property. You’re demonstrating a brainwashed belief that no action exists outside of the State.

So that’s a failure to demonstrate that government is or can be relatively economic efficient compared to capitalism.

Plus, you didn’t even try to demonstrate that, or how, government can get around
a) the socialist incentive problem
b) the economic calculation problem.

Clearly it can’t, and that’s why you avoided even trying to demonstrate any rational answer to those points.

Therefore that’s a *complete failure* on your part to demonstrate that government can *ever* do *anything* more economically efficiently than would obtain under a voluntary dispensation if society actually wanted it done in the first place.

All you’ve done is go round and round in circles trying to pretend that tax, law and policy are not based on coercion, when not even the government agrees with you. Or pretending that aggressive violence doesn’t affect people’s downstream economic values and actions, thereby contradicting your own premise.

“For a start, I don't have access to that much capital!”

That’s because the masses aren’t giving it to you in exchange for what you’re producing; and the reason is, because they don’t agree with your views about what constitutes the public interest. In a word, you’re wrong. You’re trying to get the state to steal that capital instead, and confusing the public interest with the state’s interest.

“They [the enormous economic and humanitarian disasters under full socialism] [a]re not coincidence at all, they're the result of preventing markets from working.”

Thank you for conceding that partial socialism is only viable to the extent that it is predatory and parasitic on a system of voluntary productive activity that it violently threatens, attacks, exploits, corrupts and reduces.

Thank you for conceding that the only thing stopping socialism from degenerating into complete disaster is the capitalism that you oppose, to the extent of your socialism.

“ignoring the evidence to the contrary”

a) you haven’t cited any evidence to the contrary. Repeatedly squarking slogans is not evidence.
b) While the (uncited) evidence for you is contingent, equivocal and disputed, and the logic against you is categorical and unanswered, it just means you’re confused: *despite* doesn’t mean *because of*.

By the way, ALL my questions have been directed at disproving my own beliefs. Your ad hominem insult that I refuse to critically examine my own beliefs is mere projection on your part.

All you’re doing by your endlessly re-circular behaviour is proving my case for me: socialism is just an irrational belief system.

NathanJ
“There is too much force worldwide, but simply avoiding discussion on what could be good for a community, and not considering a vast array of ideas and not working together isn't helpful either.”

So it’s okay to threaten to physically attack people to get their property without their consent, or force them into submission and obedience with your political beliefs?

If there’s too much force worldwide, increasing it’s not going to make the situation any better, is it?

“Where I live we have a business group, funded by a compulsory council business levy”

That’s an argument against compulsory levies, not in favour of more, isn't it? They wouldn't have spent the money on the thing you didn't want, if council hadn't forced them to give it to council in the first place, would they? Perhaps both you and they would have been better off if there was less force? And the same worldwide?

All
We have now established that all the claims of the socialists to promote a fairer or more productive society are bogus to the core.

Socialism is the most violent belief system in the history of the world, bar none. And the idea that it makes society economically better off is, as we have seen, nothing but circular irrational anti-social nonsense.

Notice the self-contradiction and total confusion of the socialists on every single point they have made in the entire thread?

JKJ, I don't think I have ever encountered someone so absolutely certain of the absolute correctness of their own beliefs and argument as you. Except perhaps for one or two of the old communist veterans I knew in the party several decades ago who had transformed from dialectical thinkers into quasi-religious dogmatists. I hope I am never so absolutely certain of my own correctness.

In response to Jardine K. Jardine,

"So it’s okay to threaten to physically attack people to get their property without their consent, or force them into submission and obedience with your political beliefs?"

I don't know if you volunteer with any organisations, but I do. This means it is important to consider a range of opinions to come to a good outcome - and people for example on the groups executive committee (I am on three) all of our members need to be reasonably satisfied with how to move forward. It is not about force or any elements of right or left wing viewpoints.

It is more about views from all taken on board and being open minded as much as possible.

I don't want to push my own personal views onto others (like being vegetarian) for example, as my parents did, trying to force me to continue to eat meat. However you then say (despite the fact I am not socialist - and don't have extreme left or right wing viewpoints):

"We" (whoever these people are) have now established that all the claims of the socialists to promote a fairer or more productive society are bogus to the core."

It doesn't seem logical to your case, does it? Any person can believe what they want, and forceful or generalising comments won't change that.

Jardine

Your restating an absurd claim doesn't mean we've established it, it merely means I've so far failed to cure you of your delusion. Yes, you, personally! You have been making all sorts of baseless allegations about what I believe because you think that you can win the argument by setting up a strawman. But I very much doubt anyone who's still reading this is dumb enough to believe that demolishing your own strawman means you've won any argument against me.

I do NOT think it’s okay for people to be physically attacked, humiliated, handcuffed, electrocuted, caged, shot or killed so as to force them into submission and obedience with my political beliefs, for entirely peaceable and consensual transactions with private property that are none of my business.

Prison rape isn't as common here than in America. It is not acceptable under any circumstances, and the government should make every reasonable effort to eliminate it. I don't think eliminating the option of sending convicts to prison counts as a reasonable effort, and I don't think you really believe it does either.

As I said, "I support the ability of the police to use reasonable force to enforce the law". I noticed you didn't have an answer for the following questions:
"Do you oppose the ability of the police to use reasonable force to enforce the law?
If so, what would you do instead?"

But your connection of this to economics is extremely tenuous. You're wrongly assuming that because governments have coercive powers that they can use in some circumstances, everything they do is coercive. 'Tis as if a cop can't buy a donut without it being labelled a "coerced transaction"!

If you tried to understand my arguments before trying to dismiss them, you might stand a chance of reaching the victorious position you're constantly falsely claiming. But more likely, you'd actually learn something!

Jardine -
"You haven’t
a) taken any externalities into account in units of a lowest common denominator, or
b) demonstrated that government is capable of, or representative in doing so
c) demonstrated the absolute efficiency in issue. You’re just ASSUMING it again. "
a) WTF do you mean?
b) Why would the government be incapable? 'Tis standard procedure nowadays for governments to take externalities into account. Granted they're not perfect at it, but it's a lot better than nothing. And democracy, which is supposed to give everyone an equal say, makes governments far more representative than markets where say is proportional to money.
c) Whether the money costs exceed the money benefits varies according to the particular good or service – you’re just ASSUMING that I'm assuming it again.

"Aidan, the issue is precisely whether the public interest is closer to what the government says it is, than what voluntary society says it is. So you’re assuming what is in issue, so you’re arguing in a circle – again! And you disclaimed circular argument, so you’re contradicting yourself again. "
Actually what was at issue was "that government can do some things more efficiently.

NB I never meant to imply that the Do Nothing option was a "prevent anything being done" option.

As for the socialist incentive problem, I think that's a red herring – very little of the work in the private sector is done by the owners, especially in big business.
The economic calculation problem is based on a false assumption of coercion. As I am not advocating coercion, it is irrelevant.

Dear Aidan,

"Do you oppose the ability of the police to use reasonable force to enforce the law?
If so, what would you do instead?"

Yes, I oppose the ability of the police to use force (reasonable or otherwise) to enforce the law.

Instead, I support the ability of the police to use force, but only for the protection of those citizens who wish to be protected by the state.

The criterion for using force should be that if it isn't used, then citizens [who wish to be protected by the state] would reasonably likely be in danger - in other words, that actual real people could be otherwise broken, not laws.

"'For a start, I don't have access to that much capital!'
That’s because the masses aren’t giving it to you in exchange for what you’re producing; and the reason is, because they don’t agree with your views about what constitutes the public interest. In a word, you’re wrong. You’re trying to get the state to steal that capital instead, and confusing the public interest with the state’s interest. "
The masses don't always have the capital to start with, and individual spending decisions are likely to be based on the interests of the individuals with most money, not the public. And even if I'm able to convince banks to lend me the money, they'd never lend it to me as cheaply as governments can borrow it.

“'[the disasters under full socialism] [a]re not coincidence at all, they're the result of preventing markets from working.'
Thank you for conceding that partial socialism is only viable to the extent that it is predatory and parasitic on a system of voluntary productive activity that it violently threatens, attacks, exploits, corrupts and reduces."
Except that I didn't – you failed to consider the extent that it is symbiotic, creating conditions where the voluptuary productive activity can thrive (to a greater extent than under the Do Nothing option) and resulting in less violence.

"Thank you for conceding that the only thing stopping socialism from degenerating into complete disaster is the capitalism that you oppose, to the extent of your socialism. "
If "capitalism" means "trade" then I'm not against it. As I said before:
I am generally in favour of free trade. Exceptions do exist: I generally support regulating the sale of dangerous or harmful things, and I support some regulation of service provision to enable and encourage cross subsidisation to occur. I also support labour market regulation and compliance with international sanctions. But apart from that, I think everyone should be able to trade freely with whoever they want, and I oppose GST. So please respond to my stated opinions rather than categorising me and responding to what you think a socialist would think!

byork
Notice how you've just descended into personal argument without even attempting to address the ethical or economic assumptions that you make, and which no-one has been able to defend? But the question whether government can increase economic efficiency does not turn on the *personality* of Jardine K. Jardine. You're missing the very idea of logical thought.

Your beliefs would only be true if there was no such thing as reality, logic or truth - the necessary assumption of your entire economic theory.

NathanJ
If there's no question of coercion, then there's no question of governmental action.

Aidan
Physically attacking, tazering, handcuffing, and shooting people are ALL within the purview of what the law considers reasonable if the subject doesn't submit and obey - that's why police do it and don't get imprisoned for it.

So either you say that that aggressive violence is reasonable, or you say it's not, and either way you've just lost the ethical argument.

You have not even begun to provide any *rational* reason for your claim that government can increase economic efficiency or sustainability. Pointing to alleged defects in capitalism doesn't do it. At best, it's a non sequitur. You have not demonstrated any necessary relation between inputs and outputs, so how can you even think that you've made any rational argument?

All
I have been contending all along that there is no rational basis for socialism.

Notice that Byork, David, Aidan and NathanJ have all just demonstrated what I'm trying to prove, not what they're trying to prove?

JKJ, can you hear the echo arising from your appeal to 'everyone' to accept your superior logic and wisdom? I know this is impossible to you, but you may actually be wrong. You cannot deal with socialists who support liberty. It throws you into confusion and you engage in personal misrepresentation. "From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs (and dreams)". Capiche?

Dear Barry,

"You cannot deal with socialists who support liberty"

How else can one deal with those who support liberty only to themselves?

"From each according to their abilities,"

Yea, slave them to their last calorie!

"to each according to their needs (and dreams)"

Off to bed kids, quickly on pillow-duty - whoever dreams first of seeing their rival hanging and drinking their blood, will be the winner!

"Capiche?"

Ja, ich verstehe!
Da, ya ponimayu!

Hi Barry,

The problem is that Utopian theories may well be incompatible with liberty. Liberty implies that people are free to think for themselves, speak and act for themselves, while a ready-made 'perfect' Utopia demands that everybody thinks along certain already-prescribed lines, exceptions to which must regrettably be 'extracted'. After all, the Party knows best.

Has there ever been an exception to this, that a thorough-going socialist system anywhere has allowed freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of speech ? It would so nice if it could happen, but has it - ever ?

Gawd - notice I wrote in that first line " .... may well .... " - You can take the boy out of the Left ....

Joe

Barry
"I know this is impossible to you, but you may actually be wrong."

In case you haven't noticed, I've been trying to prove myself wrong the whole thread. ALL my questions are directed at attempt to falsify my own beliefs. And none of you can answer them! You slink off throwing personal insults over your shoulder, David goes out backward and goes quiet, and Aidan goes round and round in circles contradicting himself in EVERY post.

ALL your replies to me have been based on mere personality, as if ad hominem argument will establish your socialist paradise for us.

If you can just answer my questions without self-contradiction, you will prove me wrong. Go ahead.

1. How do you support socialism without supporting aggressive violence to force people to submit and obey in anything that involves human co-operation and therefore, according to you, "social wealth"?

You have seen the impossible self-contradiction that Aidan has gotten himself into, on the one hand denying that he supports aggressive violence, and on the other hand agreeing that he does support electrocuting and shooting people so long as the state sanctions its own violence to enforce socialist policies - which it does.

So come on. What's your answer?

2. How is "the community" is going to know how to combine the factors of production without making the productive class worse off, because of the incentive problem, the knowledge problem, and the economic calculation problem that we have jsut seen David and Aidan COMPLETELY UNABLE to begin to address, let alone to demonstrate a superior alternative.

All you guys are doing is chanting a superstitious liturgy of state-worship, while supporting the exploitation of the productive class in favour of the ruling class, while stupidly believing you stand for the opposite. Just like in your last post you believe Marx stood for the private ownership of the means of production. It's laughable confusion and ignorance.

Spare us your ad hominem snivelling. Answer the questions.

Jardine K. Jardine,

So few of these business levies exist in Australia - but they are increasing. We now have three business levies in my area alone. One is being considered for a precinct in Adelaide - and I live outside of Adelaide, in the Adelaide Hills.

Why were the council levies brought in, after only being approached by about 2-3 high profile business people? For council to be seen as pro-business.

Since finding out these groups can do whatever they like with the money they get - I've called for the levy to be removed (as our community don't know what may happen next) - but the elected members and council staff won't change their mind (when they set council rates), as council wants to share costs on various projects with the business group.

The previous business group had 100% voluntary membership - with not many paid members and was not political. The current group is political and for example, used funds to oppose a shopping complex it didn't want as competition using an expensive planning consultant.

We have two sets of groups (one, business based with a compulsory imposed funding base) and others (100% voluntary, based on volunteering and fundraising). This has lead to a two tiered, system of community groups and it is a very unfair, unjustified society to live in.

But of course as we all know from local, state and federal governments we live in a "free market economy". I'm still confused, why compulsory business levies exist right now.

Jardine, what I'm contradicting isn't myself, it's the stuff you falsely accuse me of believing.

Every time I try and explain it to you, you accuse me of lying because it contradicts your prejudices! You've frequently libelled me, making up the most ridiculous accusations (such as supporting rape).

Your attitude seems to be "socialism is evil because it requires violence because Jardine says it does and Jardine can't be wrong so anyone who explains why it isn't is lying". But we've established that the only violence it requires is general law enforcement (which capitalism also doesn't work well without).

You lie when you claim that I "support electrocuting and shooting people so long as the state sanctions its own violence to enforce socialist policies". Such measures by police would not be regarded as "reasonable force" when enforcing anything to do with economic policy (which is rarely a police matter anyway). Guns and Tasers are used in law enforcement to stop a suspect who is a danger to others. I suppose there could be a link if gangsters are arrested for tax evasion, but it is very tenuous and certainly not contingent on socialism.

"You have not even begun to provide any *rational* reason for your claim that government can increase economic efficiency or sustainability"
I did begin, but we got sidetracked when you took my words out of context, made false claims about my beliefs, and started accusing me of lying.

Once you cease to do so, we can continue the discussion.

Regulation is the main way governments increase environmental sustainability. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

How much detail do I need to go into to explain about efficiency? For instance do I need to explain why, when there's something that the government decides needs doing immediately, doing it in-house can be cheaper than contracting it out?

NathanJ
Yes, interesting. You would wonder how council could possibly present itself as pro-business by a tax on businesses, i.e. a compulsory taking of their property. Clearly the council has an interest in getting more money but, one might ask, what interest would the businesses have in it?

The answer is that the tax is on *all* businesses, but the political process allows for a concentration of a small minority of affected businesses to use it. They get to use other people's money. The effect is that the tax can then go to satisfying the values or wants of the small minority of businesses who are motivated to get active in politics, not "business", and not "the community".

This makes a wider economic point. The confiscations of government - even huge production goods such as education or the ABC - become the *consumer goods* of the people whom government gives the power to use them: usually government officials, but often other government dependants. Owing to the problems I have alluded to (the 1. knowledge, 2. incentive, and 3. economic calculation problems), those people *cannot* use that property to satisfy the most urgent and important wants of society, as defined by society. They can only use it to satisfy *themselves* either
a) as to what they themselves want, or
b) as to what they *believe without any rational basis* that society wants.

The term "right wing" is always confused in a sense that left wing is not. Both leftists and non-leftists are agreed that left wing invariably refers at a minimum to government control of the means of production, whatever else it may refer to. But "right wing" is used to refer to at least 4 different and inconsistent political belief systems:
1. totalitarian national socialist fascists like Hitler
2. neo-cons like the American republican hawks
3. classical liberals like Acton or Mises
4. anarcho-capitalists like Rothbard.

For mine, anyone - businessman or not - calling for council to tax businesses so they can spend it on "public" purposes are by definition left wing. That's got more explaining power, hasn't it?

Aidan
Your entire argument that you don’t support aggressive violence to force people to submit or obey depends on the factually false proposition that the state doesn’t use or threaten it to enforce law and policy. They do, and that’s not me misrepresenting either the state or you. By law, tax, law and policy are not voluntary they are compulsory.

Your denial of this is vain. It just means you’re denying the facts.

Your attempt to paint the issue as one of self-defence is nonsense. The state, in enforcing laws violating people’s liberty or property, is not acting in self-defence. They will go to whomever they want to charge with breaking any law, and if he doesn’t submit and obey, they will escalate aggression, and if he still doesn’t submit and obey, they will keep escalating it up to and including electrocution, caging or shooting.

This being so, it is not a misrepresentation of what you are saying, to say you support the use of aggressive violence to force people to submit and obey.

The state’s claim of a legal monopoly of the use of aggressive force is a defining characteristic which distinguishes the state from other social organisations.

It is this claim which underlies all the state’s revenues, both directly in taxation, and indirectly in borrowing which depends on its power to tax (also its power to finance by inflating the supply of money and credit.)

The claim of a legal monopoly of coercion underlies the enforcement of ALL law and policy. This is what distinguishes law and policy from other rules of conduct in society. The reason why people resort to policy suggestions, rather than suggestions of a voluntary order, is because with policy, they can *force and threaten* people to obey. If this were not so, there would be no call for policy: people would satisfy themselves with seeking voluntary co-operation, not coerced.

As tax , law, and policy all depend on the state’s powers of coercion, therefore you cannot even start with your economic argument until you have cleared this first hurdle.

Go ahead.

Jardine
Like most capitalists, I recognise the need for law and order and support the limited use (in a legally predefined way) of violence in law enforcement.

I do not support any right of the police to shoot or electrocute people except in self defence or the defence of others.

"This being so, it is not a misrepresentation of what you are saying, to say you support the use of aggressive violence to force people to submit and obey"
By the broadest definitions, I concede it's not a misrepresentation.
However, if you imply I support the use of excessive violence, it becomes a misrepresentation.
If you imply I support the arbitrary use of violence, it becomes a misrepresentation.
If you imply I support the use of violence to force people to submit and obey to anything other than the law then it becomes a misrepresentation. It's certainly a misrepresentation to claim, as you have done, that I support the use of violence to submit and obey to "the regime" or to "socialist policies".

It is true that the state's coercive powers enable it to do things it would not otherwise be able to do. But taking advantage of that does not equate to violence. Quite the opposite, in fact – by giving people less reason to resort to violence and more reason not to, it reduces the total amount of violence.

I can’t see how you can’t see that you’re caught in a self-contradiction that invalidates your ethical argument.

It's no use appealing to such terms as "excessive" or "reasonable", because the issue is precisely whether it's excessive or reasonable in the first place to use force or threats to get what you want, to take other people's property, to forcibly prevent people from engaging in consensual activities, or to force them to engage in non-consensual activities.

You can’t just sprinkle holy water blessed by the State on the ethical problem and make it go away.

If you say you believe only in the "reasonable" not “excessive” use of force, then since the law considers the use of handcuffs, tazers and guns reasonable to force people to obey - otherwise why are the cops carrying and using them when it’s a crime for you and me? - then you're admitting that you believe in electrocuting and shooting people to force them to submit and obey on a double standard.

But if you say you don't believe in that, then you're contradicting yourself if you don't renounce your political philosophy. It is nothing but a red herring, factually untrue, to suggest it's built on self-defence. It’s built on enforcing the policies and laws you support, which are the expression of your political opinion. Admit it.

You've got nothing. It's neither fish nor foul.

"Quite the opposite, in fact – by giving people less reason to resort to violence and more reason not to, it reduces the total amount of violence."

1. Obviously if the behaviour you're forcibly overriding is consensual, you are *increasing*, not reducing the total amount of violence - THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT.
2. All you're arguing is that your support of aggressive violence is for some supposed, alleged higher social good. But there is no higher social good than not aggressively attacking people for peaceable and productive behaviour!

Your simultaneous affirming and disclaiming the use and threat of aggressive violence makes your entire argument an invalid, self-contradictory jumble; why can’t you see that?

You’ve tried denying violence is violence when the government does it. But not even the government agrees with that.

You’ve tried alleging that it’s all for self-defence. But that is just factually false. Police can and do legally use weapons to *initiate* force when people don’t submit and obey, and to *overcome* self-defensive actions their aggression provokes, by escalating more aggression.

You’re tried limiting your support to what is “reasonable” and not “excessive”. But this is only circular. Either you admit electrocuting or shooting people is excessive, in which case you lose the argument because you say you reject that; or you deny it’s excessive, in which case you lose the argument, because you say you reject that.

And you’ve tried alleging that it’s necessary for a higher moral purpose, which is moral nonsense: The whole purpose of rules of just conduct, of ethics, is so that “might is right” will *not* be the operating principle.

And still you try to squirm out of conceding what you can’t defend, never once conceding that you are were wrong in saying you don’t support aggressive violence, never once wondering why your argument finds you contradicting yourself and supporting violence you find morally abhorrent, never once wondering why my argument avoids self-contradictions *and* supports more peaceable, social and productive behaviour. And then you’ve got the vanity and gall to accuse me of lacking critical inquiry!

Thus
a) you have proved my point that socialism has no rational basis
b) your denial that you support aggressive violence to force people to submit or obey is factually and logically false
c) your economic hypothesis of the superior governmental economic efficiencies you allege, depend on the use of force that you either deny exists, or say you reject
d) quite apart from that, you have made no argument establishing any necessary relation of inputs to outputs and so have made no rational argument about efficiency.

I'm not misrepresenting you. You have completely failed to justify partial socialism, or renounce it, and instead of trying to personalise the argument to me, perhaps you should think why?

Brought up by strongly Left parents, I was saved from radicalism by reading Animal Farm. it should be required reading in all schools.

Jardine,
"I can’t see how you can’t see that you’re caught in a self-contradiction that invalidates your ethical argument. "
Yes, you do seem incapable of understanding all but the most simplistic arguments. I guess that's why Mises appeals to you so much!

"It's no use appealing to such terms as 'excessive' or 'reasonable', because the issue is precisely whether it's excessive or reasonable in the first place to use force or threats to get what you want, to take other people's property, to forcibly prevent people from engaging in consensual activities, or to force them to engage in non-consensual activities. "
So now you're redefining the issue to make my argument look circular!
You seem to want to treat property rights as essential but ignore most other rights. Why?

"You can’t just sprinkle holy water blessed by the State on the ethical problem and make it go away. "
But I can treat the state as a special case. Law, including taxation law, is the basis of every advanced society, and it does require enforcement.

"If you say you believe only in the 'reasonable' not 'excessive' use of force, then since the law considers the use of handcuffs, tazers and guns reasonable to force people to obey - otherwise why are the cops carrying and using them when it’s a crime for you and me?"
Because the job law enforcement puts cops in a situation where they're likely to need to use them in self defence or the defence of others.

"then you're admitting that you believe in electrocuting and shooting people to force them to submit and obey on a double standard. "
As I said last time, I don't support any right of the police to shoot or electrocute people except in self defence or the defence of others.

"Obviously if the behaviour you're forcibly overriding is consensual, you are *increasing*, not reducing the total amount of violence - THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT."
Are you seriously telling me you equate legislation with violence even when no actual violence occurs?

Think about it! You may change your mind.

Aidan

“Yes, you do seem incapable of understanding all but the most simplistic arguments.”

Ad hominem, circularity = irrational twice over.

“So now you're redefining the issue to make my argument look circular!”
Unsupported (dishonest) allegation that I redefined the issue, misrepresentation = irrational four times now.

I didn’t redefine the issue. You said you don’t support the use of aggressive violence to force people to submit and obey, and now you either admit it and contradict yourself, or deny it and you’re lying.

[Tax]… does require enforcement.’
Question-begging, self-contradiction = irrational 6 times so far in the one post. Situation normal.

“Because the job law enforcement puts cops in a situation where they're likely to need to use them in self defence or the defence of others.”

Dishonest evasion, circularity.

Irrational 8 times in the one post.

The question is when they’re NOT using it for self-defence or the defence of others.

Are they justified in electrocuting or shooting people to force them to submit and obey?

Spare us your circular evasions and answer the real question, not your fake re-definition.
Cops don't enforce laws in self-defence and you know it.

You're unable to defend your ethical or economic claims, so you just go round and round like the village idiot pretending that the state doesn't enforce law and policy by initiating or escalating aggressive force. No-one can be as dumb as you're pretending to be. You're just lying and it's as simple as that.

“Are you seriously telling me you equate legislation with violence even when no actual violence occurs?”

Are you seriously telling me that you equate rape with making love even when “no actual violence” occurs, only threats of violence that will be carried out if the victim doesn’t submit?

Got that ethical justification of shooting and threatening to shoot people to force them into obedience yet fellah?
Got that rational proof of the economic efficiency of destroying capital to make society richer yet?

Unfortunately your childish intellectual dishonesty and moral idiocy has only managed to prove what socialism is really made of.

"You seem to want to ... ignore most other rights. Why?"

There's no such thing as a right to attack and rape people, remember? Idiot?

Jardine,
"There's no such thing as a right to attack and rape people, remember? Idiot?"
There's no need to state the obvious, or to add a description of yourself.
The rights I was thinking of are those in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
You seem to want to take the concept of property rights much further than the UDHR does, even though doing so would make it impossible to protect a lot of those other rights.

I made my position on violence clear on the posting dated Monday, 3 November 2014 2:56:26 PM. That posting does not contradict itself, despite your claims to the contrary.

"The question is when [police]'re NOT using it for self-defence or the defence of others.
Are they justified in electrocuting or shooting people to force them to submit and obey?"
If you're asking whether they ARE justified, that depends on what the law is.
If you're asking whether I think the law SHOULD allow it, the answer is NO.

Is that clear enough for you?
Cops sometimes do need to defend themselves while they're enforcing the law, and you know it.

As for "childish intellectual dishonesty and moral idiocy", I think that could be applied to your likening of legislation to threats of rape.

Do you really regard the Howard government's gun control legislation as increasing the total amount of violence in Australia? (Even though it actually had the opposite effect!)

Do you really think anarchy is the situation with the least violence?

Dear Aidan,

<<Do you really think anarchy is the situation with the least violence?>>

Perhaps so, perhaps not, but in anarchy, no violence is conducted by the government IN MY NAME.

It is not within my ability to prevent all violence from occurring that is perpetrated by others, but it is within my duty to resist any violence that occurs in my name, presumably on my behalf, which is what governments do.

Aidan
Your entire argument comes down to the proposition that, as concerns our differences, both funding and compliance with government is VOLUNTARY when you know perfectly well it isn't, and you know that the state's definition of what is reasonable or excessive force assumes that the subject has no right other than to submit and obey, while you disclaim that assumption.

No-one can be as dumb as you are pretending to be. You're lying.

You are only demonstrating the mental childishness that lies at the root of all socialism: the idea that somehow, there must be a big teat out there somewhere that you can suck on.

Sexual partners and friends and socks are arranged by what you're calling "anarchy", you clown. I suppose they should be provided by a big Government Department of Sexual and Social Relations, or a Government Department of Footwear? Idiot.

Jardine –

No, our differences are down to the fact that you're taking theoretical principles to absurd extremes, but failing to acknowledge the absurdity of your argument. You seem to be of the opinion that all duty is slavery, all taxation is theft, etc. You've made some incredibly dumb claims that would, if true, mean that anarchy is the situation with the least violence. And then YOU accuse ME of being, or pretending to be, dumb!

You accuse me of lying on the basis that you think my argument is dumb. But as
• you've made claims that are many orders of magnitude dumber and
• you've failed to point out any objective flaw in my arguments
...I think the most reasonable conclusion is that your opinion that my argument is dumb is actually an artefact of your own stupidity.

Your claim that "Sexual partners and friends and socks are arranged by what you're calling 'anarchy'" shows you've shifted the goalposts several kilometres outside the stadium! What I'm calling anarchy isn't just "governments not interfering" but rather I ACTUALLY mean anarchy, which is defined by Apple's dictionary as:
1 a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems: he must ensure public order in a country threatened with anarchy.
2 absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.
...So as long as laws against rape exist and are enforced, there is NOT anarchy regarding sexual partners.

As for your big teat, that's a complete non sequiter that you've based on your stereotype of socialists rather than anything I've actually said.

Outrider,
There's not really any need to read the book. Watching the film should be sufficient.

Jardine,
The term "left wing" is even more confused than "right wing". There's lots of different kinds of socialists, and lots of different kinds of communists. And most liberals are on the left (which I admit can be a bit confusing, as the Liberal Party in Australia is opposed to Liberalism).

BTW I'm not sure which Acton you were referring to, but Mises was a neoliberal not a classical liberal.

Aidan

You argue that paying tax and complying with law is voluntary. You are lying.

You argue that the state will not enforce obedience and submission. You are lying.

You argue that the state stops using aggressive force at some imaginary limit called what's "reasonable" or "excessive". You are lying.

You argue the use of violence to force people to submit and obey; the state in defining what's reasonable or excessive, doesn't.

You accuse me of being "extreme" but you won't renounce it at any stage!

So you're factually, legally, logically, and morally wrong. It's as simple as that.

Your ENTIRE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY comes down to threatening to attack, cage, shoot and rape people.

Its not me who's being "extreme" for pointing it out.

It's you for
a) supporting and advocating it in the first place, and the
b) squirming and evading and lying and projecting and question-begging when confronted with what you are doing.

Thus we have established that you have NO ETHICAL BASIS WHATSOEVER for your fake theory that rights are based in threatening to shoot, cage and rape people. Don't try to squirm out of it. You're lying. You do support it.

And you have no rational basis for your ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED RELIGIOUS FAITH THAT GOVERNMENT IS MORE ECONOMICALLY EFFICIENT AT ANYTHING.

All you're doing is endlessly repeating your irrational belief system,and trying to personalise the argument to me when you're proved flatly incorrect.

"There's lots of different kinds of socialists"
All political socialists have in common with you the advocacy of aggressive violence, as the basis of their entire philosophy, otherwise they'd renounce violence and support voluntary transactions and they'd be libertarians. You're just confused.

Jardine,

I don't argue that paying tax and complying with law is voluntary. You are lying.

I argue that the state will not enforce obedience and submission to a person or philosophy; only to the law. Do you object to that?

I argue that the state stops using aggressive force at some contextual (but legally recognised) limit called what's "reasonable" or "excessive". That's certainly true of Britain (where I was born and where I watch more cop shows from than anywhere else) and I am under the impression that it is also true of Australia. If I am wrong, perhaps you could supply some evidence?

I will never renounce the need for the rule of law, and yes, I do consider your opposition to it extreme.

But however much I explain this, you accuse me of lying because my ENTIRE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY doesn't come down to threatening to attack, cage, shoot and rape people, and you prefer to go into your own strawman instead of my actual views.

The rule of law is not an extreme position – it's something that nearly all capitalists agree on. It enables states to create and maintain the conditions where society flourishes.

But we HAVE established that you have NO ETHICAL BASIS WHATSOEVER for your fake theory that rights are based in threatening to shoot, cage and rape people. HOWEVER there's a VERY STRONG ethical basis for the real theory that many rights can't be guaranteed without the state threatening to arrest people and cage them according to the law*, and that law enforcement requires at least some of the cops to be able to shoot people in self defence and the defence of others. As for rape, that's not justified under any circumstances, and even within prisons the state has a duty to enforce the law against it.

Unfortunately if you don't even recognise the need for the rule of law, I very much doubt I could explain to you why governments could be economically efficient at things.

*Except perhaps by corporal or capital punishment, but our society's moved on from that stage.

Aidan

You are arguing in a circle.

The question is *WHETHER* the laws you support are justified you fool, and your argument is THAT, they are.

According to your idiot theory, if the state legalised slavery, there could be no objection to enforcing it, because it would only be enforcing "the law". According to you, if a slave resisted the enforcement of the law, either
a) if he was forced, it wouldn't be slavery, or
b) it would be voluntary after the point at which the state considers its enforcement "excessive", which is never, because the state doesn't acknowledge any right to disobey its threats aka laws.

As I have pointed out repeatedly, the state's standard of what is "reasonable" and not "excessive" in the enforcement of the law, assumes that the subject does NOT have the right to disobey, whereas what you are defending is the proposition that you do NOT support the use of violence or threats.

So you're lying. You know perfectly well that the state does NOT abandon the enforcement of the policies you advocate, short of attacking people.

And therefore you are lying when you say that I claim that you say compliance with law is voluntary. Because you are arguing that, after the point at which the law considers "excessive", compliance is voluntary. YOU ARE LYING.

You do support attacking, violating, electrocuting, caging, and even killing people or causing them to be raped, as the underlying threat to force them into obedience with all the socialist policies you support, otherwise you would have renounced them when invited to.

What you should have done, when I proved that your beliefs are based on violence, is to ADMIT IT, you lying fool, not just try to keep squirming out of it be endless circular argument

Jardine, I thought you'd given up on this thread. But considering the stupidity and circularity of your arguments this time, you may as well have!

"The question is *WHETHER* the laws you support are justified you fool, and your argument is THAT, they are. "
Interesting goalpost shift there! You appear to have been arguing against the enforcement of laws in general, regardless of whether I support them or not.

"According to your idiot theory, if the state legalised slavery, there could be no objection to enforcing it"
WTF is that supposed to mean? I'm not in favour of curtailing objections to anything, but it would make far more sense to object to that law's existence than its enforcement. What I am in favour of curtailing is the states ability to contravene the universal declaration of human rights.

"As I have pointed out repeatedly, the state's standard of what is 'reasonable' and not 'excessive' in the enforcement of the law, assumes that the subject does NOT have the right to disobey, whereas what you are defending is the proposition that you do NOT support the use of violence or threats. "
And I subsequently clarified my position: I do support the power of arrest and detention for the purpose of law enforcement. I do not support the use of guns and tasers in law enforcement except in self defence or the defence of others. And I do not support the use or threat of rape under any circumstances.

Why do you still have so much trouble comprehending that? In your above scenario, even though the subject does not have a right to disobey, disobedience alone is not sufficient justification to shoot them, or even to threaten to do so. But letting a suspect flee does not constitute abandonment of enforcement. And because I'm not advocating abandonment of enforcement, your claim that I argue compliance is voluntary is untrue, and your claim that I'm lying is a lie.

Clarification to the above: When I said...
I do not support the use of guns and tasers in law enforcement except in self defence or the defence of others
...I meant against people. I'm not intrinsically opposed to shooting a lock or the tyres of a getaway vehicle, for example.

If you don't support the rule of law, maybe you could propose an alternative? But I'm certain you won't find one that's less violent.

Enforcement of laws is wrong, always wrong, if it hurts other(s) who never consented to be subject to that law.

Beginning at square #1, say there is person A and there is person Z and person A wants person Z to trim their banana trees and not wear a scarf, which person Z refuses.

So person A, knowing that he is not physically strong enough to push Z to the ground and extract the desired behaviour by violent threats, instead visits all the neighbours around.

Somehow or another, 'A' makes a pact with all persons B-Y of the surrounding area and that pact includes the establishment of a legal system and courts, etc.

Next 'A' proposes a law: "Everyone must trim their banana trees and nobody may wear a scarf - let there be an assembly and the majority shall decide whether this law is accepted. 'Z' should also vote in the assembly, in fact he must, drag him if he refuses.". The assembly takes place and since none of B-Y have banana trees or wear scarves, also since 'A' is really nice to them and distributes some free rum in the assembly, they say "why not" and the law is agreed upon by the overwhelming majority of 25 to 1.

Now, from a moral perspective, nothing ever permitted 'A', even if he could, to coerce 'Z' into trimming his bananas and not wearing a scarf. Neither did anything permitted 'A' to enter 'Z's property, trim his bananas and snatch away his scarf.

And the same could be said for 'B', and for 'C' and for 'D' all the way to 'Y': none of them had any right to do those things.

So what changed? the fact that A-Y decided among them to create a legal system means nothing outside that system. As 'Z' never consented to have anything to do with it, applying the law to him is very wrong and violent. No group can morally have more privileges than the sum of privileges enjoyed by its members and freely conferred by them on that group.

(continued...)

(...continued)

We must, however, differentiate between law-enforcement and self-defence:

In a second example, assume that scarves attract the kind of monkeys that spread Ebola and that those monkeys also like sitting on the tops of tall banana trees.

In this case, 'A' (and also 'B', 'C',...,'Y') have a right to do what is reasonably necessary to save themselves from Ebola, including the bringing-about of trimming A's banana trees and making him not wear scarves.

As they have such a right, they could confer that right on the group and have the group as a whole, or its representatives, come and do what's necessary so that 'Z's banana trees are trimmed and he doesn't wear scarves. They could for example forcibly trim his trees and confiscate his scarves. They could also hold 'Z' in detention for as long as the danger of Ebola exists, if they deem that he would otherwise continue to weave scarves for himself and nothing short of that would stop him.

What the group MAY NOT do, however, under any circumstance, is to enforce their law over 'Z'.
They may not trial him, judge him, condemn him, punish him or limit his freedoms any more or any longer than necessary to prevent him from weaving new scarves while the monkeys are potentially around to be attracted by those scarves.