mistermack wrote:Coito ergo sum wrote:
It points out a fundamental characteristic of human beings that appears to be contrary to Marxist socialism, or the common ownership of the means of production and real property. People like to own stuff, including plots of land and lemonade stands.
Yes, exactly what I said :
"Pointing out the bleeding obvious, that people like to own things"
Is this something that needs pointing out, in 2012 ?
Maybe in North Korea, but I can't think of anywhere else that's not accepted as common knowledge.
Evidently it does need pointing out because despite this being, as you claim "common knowledge" Socialists insist on disregarding this human trait pretty consistently in their involuntary seizures of private "things" (read: property) taken by force under threat of death for the purposes of giving that property to some other person. It's called "redistributionism" and it's what socialism is all about.
Coito ergo sum wrote:
Socialism isn't about "sharing,"
I disagree. I think that's exactly what it's about.
No, "sharing" implies a voluntary act and agreement to divide property among persons. What Socialism is about is "taking." Socialism does not ask people if they want the fruits of their labor to be taken and redistributed, it simply takes the property and redistributes is, and kills the original owner if he resists strongly enough.
Libertarianism is about sharing because it's about voluntary associations and contracts to share that which is the property of one with others willingly and without force or coercion.
Socialism is not sharing, in the least tiny bit. It's about someone, usually the central government but sometimes the tyrannical majority, deciding how much of some individual's labor-fruit is to be forcibly taken from them and given to someone else.
Coito ergo sum wrote:
Well, if by what you "end up with" you refer to western European capitalism and North American capitalism, then you plainly do not end up with misery for the many. You wind up with the vast majority of citizens having the greatest standard of living ever experienced by humans, with luxuries such as air conditioning, automobiles, plentiful food and clean water being the norm, computers and 200 television channels commonplace, rather than the exception. Now, if you survey the nominally socialist countries in the world - there you will find misery for the many, and a great life for the few.
Well, that's a great lecture, but I don't see the point. Nobody on here has advocated going back to communism, as far as I can make out.
And nobody has argued for ending capitalism, either.
My post was arguing that a compromise between the two seems to be emerging as the best solution. But that at the moment, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.
And that's why it needs a tweak.
Except that you are not telling the truth. The poor are NOT getting poorer, they are getting richer. The middle class some 40 percent richer since the 1970s, and even the poorest of the poor some 18 percent richer.
Your objection is that the rich are getting much richer much faster than the poor are, which makes your complaint nothing more than class-warfare jealousy and greed.
Incidentally, the massive gains in living standards are not all down to capitalism. They are mainly down to mechanisation and technology. Having said that, capitalism has played an important part in that, so it's clearly an important part of the mix. But capitalism on it's own, without the technology explosion, wouldn't have produced much improvement in living standards.
Capitalism is
entirely responsible for both the massive gains in living standard and mechanization as well as technology. Without investment capital and the promise of a free market for the mechanisms and goods produced with them, neither the mechanisms to produce the goods, nor the goods themselves, would exist.
Very little in the way of technological or mechanical advancement has ever come out of any non-capitalist socialist or communist state. Cuba produces quite literally nothing of any use to the world precisely because it is communist and nobody has any motivation to innovate or discover anything because whatever they discover is immediately seized by the state for the state's use, and the inventor gets nothing for his work.
We are living in a rather unique time.
Yes, we are living in the end-time of Marxism, as people come to realize that government's cannot supply everything to the proletariat without first taking everything from them. Capitalism continues its inevitable march to victory because it encourages people to work hard and innovate so that they can improve their economic and social condition through profit from their labor.
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