JimC wrote:Seth wrote:
Don't mistake ownership and control by the state as being the equivalent of socialism. It's not. The state is perfectly able to own and control things in a Libertarian world. The difference is primarily in how the costs associated with those things are met. In socialism funding government is mandatory and coercive. In Libertarianism, funding government is voluntary and optional.
Well then, you have an utterly different definition of socialism to the rest of the world. The essence of socialism
is the ownership of the means of production by the people/state.
Correct. But it's compulsory ownership by the State that positively denies the right to private property by anyone.
Libertarianism merely requires that publicly-owned things come into the public domain through the voluntary actions of those who wish to donate and/or support them.
You have a bee in your bonnet about the nature of government taxation.
Only redistributive taxation.
In a pure socialist state (which certainly does not exist at the moment), the question of "taxation" is moot - the state owns everything anyway. All current societies have systems of taxation which are coercive, and to one degree or another, involve some form of re-distribution of wealth, which I know is your pet hate.
As well it should be because compulsory taxation for redistribution to others is inherently evil.
I can agree that a taxation system which leans too heavily in the form of re-distribution of wealth to eliminate poverty can become a disaster, for 2 clear reasons. Firstly, by excessively punishing private profit, it could cripple innovation, and secondly, it can set a mentality of welfare entitlement in concrete, neither of which is healthy. However, some degree of progressive taxation is adopted by all developed countries - the degree to which it is done is part of the whole process of a society finding an equilibrium that works, and an electorate rewarding or punishing political parties that stray too far from the accepted balance.
What you say is factually true but that doesn't change the philosophical or moral fault in such systems. The essence of all such systems is that the state decides how much of the fruits of one's labor one is required to fork over for the convenience and comfort of the dependent class. It doesn't ask people to support the poor by appealing to their altruistic, charitable, compassionate or rational self-interest instincts, the state say, in essence, "You have more than you need, so you're going to be forced to contribute according to your ability, as determined by the state, while we dole it out according to what the state decides is everyone's need."
The problem with the Marxist dialectic is that it inevitably results in abuse of the productive class by the state, which must do so in order to appease the dependent class, which grows ever larger and larger as people discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury (which is stocked by the productive class), lest the dependent class turn against the government elite and put their heads on spikes. Caught in the middle of this conundrum of supply and demand is the productive class, which is inevitably milked dry and destroyed as members of the productive class decide that there is no point in being productive if all their effort is stolen from them to pay idlers and slackers to be idle and slack. So, they join the dependent class and pretty soon there is no productive class and everybody begins to starve, as in the USSR. Then the government must become increasingly totalitarian and fascistic and must force people to work on pain of death merely to try to feed the seething proletarian masses.
And the end of this story is Stalinism and Maoism repeated time and time and time again, endlessly, all because idiot socialists think that they are entitled to have something for nothing.
Libertarianism says that it's up to each individual to work to provide for themselves, and if you choose to be idle, then you get to suffer the consequences of your idleness. But at the same time, rational self interest and other natural human traits mean that Libertarians will assist those who are, through no fault of their own, unable to provide for themselves.
The difference between the two systems is that under socialism,
everyone suffers "equally", whereas under Libertarianism only those who refuse to work and contribute to the success of the society suffer. Everybody else gets along fine and enjoys a viable permanent and stable form of society.
By constantly referring to socialism and/or marxism, you are attacking a straw man which rotted away many decades ago - the experiment with marxism was tried, found wanting, and abandoned.
I have a one-word refutation of this claim: Venezuela.
You have every right to argue for minimalist government, reduced interference with the private lives of citizens, and a taxation system to one end of the normal curve, but your ideas are not diktats from on high, they are legitimate arguments which you propel into the marketplace of public opinion, where they will compete with other ideas, and reach whatever their natural position of public acceptance will be...
Let the market decide, Seth...
I'm happy to let the market decide, if the market is not being manipulated and controlled by the state in order to achieve socialist goals of "equality" for all.
In sum, march or die. If you don't want to work, then you go hungry and freeze in the dark. The productive class is under no duty or obligation to bail you out of your sloth and poor decision making.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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