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.