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The Forum > General Discussion > One World Government ?

One World Government ?

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Squeers

You said this:
“It's the fascist free-marketeers who are…”

which abusive insult of which originally prompted me to demonstrate that fascism is classically opposed to laissez-faire and free markets. As you have already shown by your proposals, you support very many of the economic policies of Hitler, despite your now lying to try to squirm out of it.

You describe thorough-going state control, restriction and confiscation of private production as “laissez faire” or “free market”. But nobody can be as stupid as you are pretending to be. That can only be a tactic of deliberate dishonesty.

And then you say “I'll just add that I find rhetorical use of fascism, and by inevitable association the holocaust, to bait people, disgusting and offensive…”

So you find yourself your own use of fascism disgusting and offensive, do you? I only took you at your word!

Your position that you hate national socialism more than you hate capitalism is false because being opposed to free trade, you can’t hate national socialism more, because that’s the only alternative to free trade – the government will tell people what they may produce or trade. If production is not to happen by way of private ownership – the dreaded capitalism – then what is your alternative? If it’s not OWG, and not mass starvation, how can it be anything other than national socialism?

Thus when you call “fascists” those, such as I, who defend personal and economic freedom against arbitrary government interference, it is a term of abuse, and dishonest to boot.

But when I call you a fascist, as I have just shown, it is a historically and economically accurate term of description.

The fact you squirm under it is for you to correct, not me. Perhaps, from the anti-capitalist company you keep, it’s time you re-thought your economic and political ideology? Full socialism is literally impossible, because of the economic calculation problem. The only possible alternative to freedom of private ownership, is fascism and corporate cronyism. Think about it.
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 16 October 2011 5:21:04 PM
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Peter,

There are some people who hate dogs AND cats. It's not either/or.

Squeers,

You are right as usual when you write "capitalism in any form is for me irredeemable, rapacious and unsustainable." But the same principle of logic applies, as Belly so astutely points out: what do we put in its place, supposing - as Belly also witheringly exposes - we had the numbers ? Maybe it's not EITHER capitalism OR socialism either.

Yes, there has to be something vaguely, slightly, distantly, like socialism, perhaps a post-democratic, better-than-democratic, form of social organisation. And maybe, once that has been achieved, all over the world, countries might cautiously move towards association, and co-operation, and bilateral, then multilateral, confederations.

But what might the time-line for this better form of society be like ? After all, we are approaching Marx's bicentenary. At current rates, even if we assumed that there was already, let's say, one genuine post-democratic/socialist state right now, what are the chances that it will survive ? If it does, what are the chances that its ruling party will not be corrupted by power which might inevitably accrue to its Great and Beloved Leader ?

And we're back in the gulags.

And if a collection of states could somehow get over those hurdles, say after another two hundred years, while capitalism evolves new and more insidious forms of economic dominance - well, one thing I've learnt is that when one has to posit more than a couple of 'ifs', then give it away, particularly if not one 'if' has truly come to pass.

You would probably agree that Karl Popper's notions of incremental change, painfully improving the lives of ordinary people, innovating better forms of democracy in the face of the rapacity of capitalism, bit by bit, might have a better chance of solid success.

Sorry, gotta watch the Semi-final :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 16 October 2011 5:58:47 PM
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Belly,
I wasn't directing anything at you, though you are clearly a union man and I hadn't thought of that. But then when has Squeers ever sung a popular tune?. Don't forget I spent decades under industrial unions too, and while I don't wish to give offence, I stand by my condemnation above. In recent decades unionism hasn't been politically ideological at all, just ever obsequiously clambering for better wages and conditions--for the sake of better wages and conditions! regardless of whether they were warranted and certainly not in accordance with a progressive socialist agenda. And you can't deny that those same unionists, by and large who have betrayed their ostensible cause in droves, in favour of contracts (lucrative in the short term), are the same people among the working classes, indeed largely representative, who are now xenophobic and calling for protection. There is indeed common ground between the popular left and right. And that's not what Labor is supposed to stand for!
Posted by Squeers, Sunday, 16 October 2011 6:07:14 PM
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Loudmouth

Firstly, the charge that capitalism is “rapacious” and “unsustainable” is, in other words, an accusation that capitalism is keeping too many people alive at too high a standard. Certainly socialism is a cure for that problem!

Secondly, either you’re right, or you’re wrong, in thinking that there are more than two alternatives: capitalism and socialism.

The argument that you’re wrong is this.
EITHER 1. you can decide how to use your labour or other means of production, based on private property, voluntary exchange and personal freedom,
OR 2. it can be decided by the state, based on political decision-making, compulsory monopoly, and bureaucratic central planning.
There is no other possibility. And the second option, and all other options, would involve mass starvation.

The argument that you’re *right* is that there are the above two options, and … what? I say there isn’t one. You say there is, or might be. Okay. What is it?

Note that, to be a third option, it cannot entail decisions by the state on how the means of production are to be used, because *that proves you wrong*.

Okay. So please either say what the third option is, or concede that you’re wrong in supposing there is one.

Watching you guys discuss socialism is like watching 19th century surgeons going from patient to patient with contaminated hands. But it’s worse than that, because *even after the germ theory of disease is explained*, and *even after you are shown how to wash your hands* YOU STILL DON’T GET IT.

“They obstinately cling to their previous opinions.”
Mises

But it’s already been proved why it’s not *possible*, let alone desirable – NINETY YEARS AGO!

Squeers is caught out in an act of blatant intellectual dishonesty and bankruptcy, and you rush to defend him and assure him that socialism is possible.

As I have shown, historically and economically, “fascist” describes Squeers own policy preferences which he has stated repeatedly – opposed to free trade, and in favour of controls over profit, wages, prices, trade, money, credit, and all production. In denying this, he’s LYING.
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 16 October 2011 8:23:19 PM
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Unless you are able to
a) understand
b) correctly represent, and
c) refute
the argument from economic calculation: http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf
you are not qualified to have an opinion on whether socialism might be possible; because that irrefutably proves that it's not.

Okay. Can you tell me what is the argument from economic calculation, which proves socialism is not possible in theory, let alone in practice?

Furthermore, because it’s not possible, the only other possibility is an ongoing move into fascism, which is what we’re seeing all over the western world. For example, government control of the money supply, a la USA and Europe, is NOT “free market”, is not “laissez faire”. It’s money socialism! Since you and Squeers are not in favour of capitalism, therefore you are in favour of socialist fascism, because there is no other alternative.

Democracy is just socialism by instalments. If you actually READ the economic policies of Hitler, you will find many that any anti-capitalist agrees with: government control of business, government restriction of profits, government taxing of capital gain, and so on. Do you?

Right now the UN is planning all sorts of central planning of food and other production that will definitely – not maybe – cause many people to die. Yet you socialist conceited fools just can’t get it – maybe if you kill enough people some form of socialism will work eventually?

WAKE UP!

Squeers
So you’re opposed to free trade, opposed to world government, and opposed to national socialism.

So who is going to make decisions on how to use the means of production, and on what basis?
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 16 October 2011 8:26:58 PM
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No, Peter, neither capitalism nor socialism, as I tried to point out in my clumsy way. Neither path has the answers.

What else then ?

I haven't got a clue. But there must be something that builds on them. What that is, I don't know. That's the task of the next Marx, or Mises, or Popper. One of us.

It's not an open-and-shut world, Peter. It's a bit more complicated than that.

Best wishes,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 16 October 2011 9:02:16 PM
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