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