With regard to the rest of your post which is equally as ridiculous as what I have exposed above, I suggest you go back and read what I have written.

People can’t win lotteries without someone creating the wealth to win. Sportspeople can’t do what they do professionally, without the support of a multitude of people. “Wealth” can only be made by humans transforming raw materials into something useful.

You people always use sporting analogies to make your point. There is a huge difference between sport and economics, because if you lose at sport (or fail to lift 1000lbs or sprint the 100m) you don’t starve. The same can’t be said for those who lose at economics.

I’m not even going to bother dealing with the rest of your ridiculous contradictions – it is absolute trash.

My, my, my Col,

Something we have in common. Florence is my favourite city.

I'll be on holidays for the next few weeks so I won't have the pleasure of witnessing your witty reparte, or the holes you dig for yourself. What a shame.

GT Don’t worry about Tristan/tao, under his regime of delusional power, “property is theft”, except for what he and other unelected members of the central committee own. Typical hypocrisy of the despotic socialist.

I make money by saving other people money, where do you get the idea that I should distribute my “wealth” on some scale determined by Tristan/tao because you see it as “socially desirable” whilst I see it as “pandering to the indolent”?
Finally, the “need” I would have to dig a hole would only be to come down to your level.

As it is I prefer to assume you can hear the wisdom of my words from that pit which you would seek to drag the rest of us into.

As for your holiday, enjoy. Is it really a “holiday” or maybe you are “between jobs”?

Oh and re your absence, I am indifferent to your presence or absence, the only difference is, when you are not here, "air" fills the vacuum.

The real quest of emontional prodding is:
IN 1947, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises published a short book entitled Planned Chaos. He analyzed and put into perspective the intellectual and ideological forces that had been at work in the Western world since the First World War and which had led to the Second World War.

He pointed out that it was “important to realize that Fascism and Nazism were socialist dictatorships” and that both had been “committed to the Soviet principle of dictatorship and violent oppression of dissenters.” He reminded his readers that before the First World War, Benito Mussolini had been one of the leading socialists in Italy. His major heresy from Marxian orthodoxy had been his strong endorsement of Italian entry into World War I on the Allied side as a means to “liberate” Italian-speaking areas under Austrian control in the Alps.

When the war ended, Mussolini organized the Fascist movement, unifying Italian nationalists, economic collectivists, and various groups from all walks of life that had come to reject traditional Marxian socialism. Mussolini took his economic agenda from the philosophy of syndicalism, the idea that trades, crafts, professions, and industries would be grouped into mandatory cartels and unions through which the nation's economic system would be planned and directed under government supervision and control. Mises pointed out that fascism “began with a split in the ranks of Marxian socialism.... Its economic program was borrowed from German non-Marxian socialism” and that “its conduct of government affairs was a replica of Lenin's dictatorship.” Mises also argued that the philosophy of Nazism was “the purest and most consistent manifestation of the anticapitalistic and socialistic spirit of our age.” Indeed.Now who do we know that has posted here; who fits that category and never under estimate the power of the great Aussi B S detector. We Know.

Fascist dictatorship, characterised by the forced union of classes under the dictatorship of an authoritarian, nationalistic Party, in alliance with the national bourgeoisie, has nothing to do with 'The Dictatorship of the Proletariat' imagined by Marx. Marx's idea comprised the notion of a dictatorship of one class over another: of the majority over the minority. Under Lenin, this became the dictatorship of a Party as the representative of this majority (and hence the whole idea was skewed. As imagined by Marx, however, the idea of majority rule was not incompatible with democracy as majority rule. Today, as Santiago Carillo understood in his book, 'Eurocommunism and the State', the very word 'dicatorship' has an unbearable connotation, and without knowledge of Marx's intentions, it is hard to disentangle the term from the experience of Stalinism.

Perhaps, if anything, the experience of class dictatorships in periods of revolutionary transition shows the importance of retaining liberal democratic institutions for purposes of stability. In Russia, for instance, the counter-revolution that overthrew Communism depended on a dictatorship of a corrupt 'White Stalinist' bureacracy creating a new bourgeois class 'out of thin air' by selling off state assets drastically under value. When the Russian parliament rebelled, it was faced with the brute force of the state.

In times where there is a vaccuum in the face of the collapse of old traditions and institutions, there is always the risk of extreme violence in the struggle for power. The consequences of such a violent struggle give good cause to support liberal democratic traditions as the framework for majority rule tempered by the securing of liberal rights of free speech, assembly etc for all. As a democratic socialist, I am not in favour of any kind of dictatorship that undermines basic liberal human rights. I do, however, maintain that it is important to distinguish between the Marxist concept of 'The Dictatorship of the Proletariat' (ie: one class wielding power of another in a period of revolution), as opposed to the experience of fascist dictatorship: which is of an entirely different order.

*previous post continued*

It is also important to remember that amongst the ranks of socialists and Marxists were those such as Carillo, Kautsky and Bernstein - who always demonstrated a healthy respect for democratic instutitons, rights and processes. These thinkers openly contested the Leninist interpretation of class dictatorship which, as Rosa Luxemburg recognised, became morphed into the dictatorship of the ruling party, and threatened to become the bureaucratic dictatorship of the executive.

What is happening here, in this thread, is an attempt to create a false association between democratic socialism and fascism: and it is an attempt that bears little relation to reality. Socialism has always been a pluralistic traditions - and it is true that there are authoritarians who claim the mantle of socialist traditions. But it is also true that there are neo-liberals who supported Pinochet - and that Pinochet's government implemented neo-liberal policies. At the same time, there are those on the neo-liberal Right who are political as well as economic liberals, and who would reject such a dictatorship. I am not going to generalise about ALL on the economic Right supporting Pinochet style governments, and I would appreciate it if my opponents were more intellectually honest also: recognising that there has always been a strong democratic current in the broader Marxist and socialist movements.

Tristan

In all seriousness, you need to take a long hard look at what you say and try applying some objectivity. No matter how hard you wish for it, you and I just can not eat rocks as a dietary intake for sustenance; no matter how much a bent mind wishes for it.
Study closer: Professor Ebeling is the Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics at Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan, and serves as vice president of academic affairs for The Future of Freedom Foundation.
I hope you find great disappointment in your mentors, but hope some realistic home truths dispel the Ideological Hypothesizing of the nothingness.
Socialist democrats or not, Ego is the driving mechanism that leads to destruction. Regardless of good intentions.