Economic Devastation

[AnonyMint]

Edit: it is ironic that socialists bemoan the Capitalists who capture the government (e.g. their incorrect view that big oil companies help cause AGW), yet then they think somehow they can vote to regulate those Capitalists, but those Capitalists are in control of the voting via their ownership of the major media. Even when socialists get regulation it is always the Capitalists who game the system, e.g. Obama was handing out of carbon tax exclusions to his friends while closing coal electric generation plants of those who are not his friends. Thus socialism is an insoluble failure by itself. It needs a counter-balancing force otherwise it is entirely gamed and controlled by those who step in to fill the power vacuum.

You might argue that we are living in a largely post industrial age (growing knowledge economy etc)- but this is academic really with regards the ownership of the means of production and the modus operandi of those in power. Note we are talking about the ownership of the means of production here - not [solely] money - money in itself need not necessarily play any part.

CoinCube linked to my writings in the OP, wherein I claim that knowledge can't be controlled by stored capital, i.e. claims on future human labor because knowledge creation is not fungible the way manual labor is.

(CoinCube I will not come back here to repeat that for every new commentator that didn't get the point of the OP, it will be up to you to defend your thread)

   My point is, that capitalism and the free market are symbiotic. The free market in 1650 => feudalism. The free market in 1850 =>capitalism. The free market 2050 => post industrial capitalism ?
    "Meet the new boss - just the same as the old boss" - for the bulk of the population it has always amounted to the same thing - practical disenfranchisement and debt.

People are attacking the free market today as it is seen as the means by which the powerful maintain their exploitative domination - not Government (whose role in all this is open to debate). The idea that the market being deregulated/liberated will lead to more equitable and just outcomes for the bulk of the population seems anathema to a lot of people - because they have no power within that market - and because even though such a market may operate more "efficiently" than one constrained by regulation, it certainly will not operate to the greater good of the greater numbers of agents within that market.

Indeed you are conflating Capitalism with the free market. The latter is a superset, which also includes the decentralized free market, i.e. the one I described as simulated annealing.

 What would a "decentralised free market" look like exactly ? LocalBitcoins.com ? I'm not sure I understand the term.

Any positive-scaling, enforceable bottom-up structure that does not require a top-down vote, any trust or knowledge about the participants.

Extreme anarchy would have no structure at all, and I am not proposing that. Positive-scaling (listen to Eric S Raymond at 4 min in linked audio) means adding more participants makes it better, not worse. In Linus's Law ("given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"), the more decentralized people working on open-source, does not suffer from the Mythical Man Month in top-down controlled closed-source.

For example this is the genius of Satoshi's proof-of-work scheme:

=========================start AnonyMint Quotes=======================
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=455141.msg5115441#msg5115441

I want decentralized security which does not have the power vacuum. Only Satoshi's Proof-of-Work has that.

but in essence all solutions are the same: consensus is
arrived at when some sufficient number of members of the group agree,

In Satoshi's PoW the miners don't have to reach any centralized census. They ALL agree to use the same protocol (else they are not making Bitcoin block chain). But there is no centralized collection of a vote. They are all free to disagree about which block solution was found first. The longest chain wins, but this concensus is completely decentralized.

...

The author set up this strawman to support the requirement of knowing who all the miners are in his Proof-of-stake (PoS) proposal. Then he commits the entropy error that I said will always occur for non-PoW, in that he requires to randomize the order of the PoS miners ("participants") but of course he can't do it without a centralized vote thus it isn't random at all.

Fail. Sorry.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=455141.msg5138106#msg5138106

Also, I didn't know about TimeKoin.  I was investigating cryptocoins that eliminate mining and was thinking it might be a good idea simply to allow a randomly selected user to create the next block.

The problem is where does the entropy for the randomness of sequence come from in non-PoW schemes?

In PoW, the decentralized entropy is coming from the DECENTRALIZED hashrate that is randomly selecting nonces to compute as trialed block solutions until one is found. There is no need to invoke trust nor reputation.

Unfortunately non-PoW schemes have no way to generate that randomness, e.g. the seed for the pseudorandom generator will always derive from some top-down vote or reputation factor. The ordering will always be low-entropy, top-down voting, trust, and reputation. This is inherently top-down and centralized. This will put us right back at fiat again.

Sorry.

The security aspect seems to be currently working ok for Nxt.  The distribution issue is purely an economics problem and since any crypto is easily copied what's the problem with distribution?

Security by top-down control and reputation is fiat. That isn't the type of security that I want. I want security from decentralized high entropy where no one can take control of the system.

Without competition in mining, there is no way to select who to give new coins (or demurrage in Freicoin) to that isn't inherently controlled top-down, i.e. fiat. Then you still need socialism to take from the rich and give to the poor. Because the fact of life is that wealth is power-law distributed [1] because the wealthy spend only a small fraction on their personal expenses. So eventually with usury the wealthy own 100%. Thus you need a way to redistribute wealth else society fails into a Dark Age. The socialism way of redistribution can be gamed by the wealthy who buy the government. Thus decentralized competition through PoW mining is the only way to fix the problem that has been plaguing society during the entire history of mankind since Mesopotamia.

[1] Dragulescu & Yakovenko. Exponential and power-law probability distributions of wealth and income in the United Kingdom and the United States

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=455141.msg5114084#msg5114084

Essentially proof-of-stake requires you to move to trust and reputation and call that "security". But that is not the type of security I want, because it ends up as "winner takes all". It is just democracy and fiat again. I want decentralized security which does not have the power vacuum. Only Satoshi's Proof-of-Work has that.

=========================end AnonyMint Quotes=======================

  And how would such a market address the vast disparities in the distributions [within the free market economy] of wealth, power and opportunity ? Or don't these issues actually need addressing at all - are they after all not a threat to [a] civil society ? Does the sense of injustice that grips a huge proportion of the population because it strikes a note of discord deep within the very fabric of their being count for nothing at all ? Is there no civic duty, responsibility towards our fellow man, compassion after all ? Only, the free market  

The decentralized free market can in theory fix the problem.

(I don't know how I manage to write a post 2 hours before your post that exactly answers your question. Not luck. There is an order to this.)

My feeling is that a free market economy would be totally powerless to address these issues - because the job of the free market is not to create social harmony and cohesion - its purpose is to allow the firm unhindered means by which to allocate resources that it might more efficiently maximise profit.

No. Just like cooling ice slowly doesn't produce cracks, the decentralized free market (simulated annealing) in absence of top-down power vacuum, will maximize entropy not concentrated profit. Remember low entropy is less resilient. Low entropy means concentrating probabilities (i.e. mass).

It is the power vacuum that mucks it up.

However, as CoinCube pointed out, entropy has to be harvested else it wanders aimlessly, i.e. decentralized structure has to be decided by a top-down creator, e.g. Satoshi. Entire lack of structure is infinite disorder (infinite entropy) and will resemble a black-hole where nothing exists. So there must be this contentionism between socialism and anarchism, else we would not exist. Note how the Second Law of Thermodynamics does not say entropy will reach infinity, rather it says it is forever trending to maximum.

I am going to depend on CoinCube to go wandering through my recent writings to find where I explained that more in depth.

I really need to quit. I am giving you all the overviews, someone else has to hammer it in.

   I can only say again that to my mind the unregulated free market (wether with or without a central Government sugar daddy) would not represent a utopian idyll - rather, it would resemble a jungle, with all its associated savagery, paranoia and needless suffering.

No that is what the power vacuum causes. You perceived that to be the free market, because you don't realize the decentralized free market is not the same as Capitalism.

 Some would prosper but most would live in fear and uncertainty. The lions wouldn't pay any tax, rather they would extract tax from the subordinates - but being a free market it wouldn't be called tax - it would be called surplus value/profit - it might even be called the fruits of economic freedom.
        In short it wouldn't be too far removed from what we have already  .


ps. I hope this doesn't make me a collectivist marxist socialist totalitarianist  .

No in a decentralized freedom, the knowledge (thus capital) moves to the producers and away from the stored capital claims on future manual labor. I am positing we couldn't do this on large-scale (i.e. most of the population doing it) before the internet, Satoshi, and the Knowledge Age.

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[CoinCube]

I would prefer to call it contentionism to imply there are two opposing forces in play. It is also a new word.

Contentionism it is.
 

Actually, it sounds like a dusting off of Marxism:
Communism and its antithesis, Capitalism, are unleashed. Then that's followed by socialism, a synthesis of the 2 opposing extremes.

As Mark Twain once said “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”

In the early industrial revolution Capitalism was the thesis and Communism the antithesis. Socialism was the eventual synthesis and what we have been living with for the past few generations.

Now we are entering a time when Socialism is starting to fail. We are also (as argued above) on the verge of a major disruptive economic transformation. Today it is Socialism that is the thesis, Anarchism the likely antithesis and perhaps Contentionism the synthesis.

I can only say again that to my mind the unregulated free market (wether with or without a central Government sugar daddy) would not represent a utopian idyll - rather, it would resemble a jungle, with all its associated savagery, paranoia and needless suffering.

If the decentralized free market lacked any top down authority then you are correct it would lead to the jungle.  Egoist Anarchism and similar variants of Anarchism advocate for the jungle. They are false.

Anonymint and I explored this very point in some depth (in a somewhat technical manner) in the link below.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg4897280#msg4897280

in a decentralized freedom, the knowledge (thus capital) moves to the producers and away from the stored capital claims on future manual labor. I am positing we couldn't do this on large-scale (i.e. most of the population doing it) before the internet, Satoshi, and the Knowledge Age.

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
 - Bob Dylan

[AnonyMint]

In response to Mint directly,

Your first link was nothing more then a Google search for 'Global warming Hoax', If you have specific sources you want me to read link them but I am not going to trawl through a goggle search doing your work for you.

No it was a link to a Google search for all of Eric S Raymond's blogs on the AGW fraud.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5266&cpage=1#comment-424444

esr on 2014-02-17 at 17:25:39 said:

>Name dropping ESR does not help you win a global warming argument.

And I don’t see any particular reason it should. Most of the people you might try that on have no reason to be aware of how much I actually know about the subject. They would only be right to be impressed if they did know.

The litmus test is if a theory or philosophy requires that we top-down control the human race, then we know:

• It is facetious because the top-down "fix" can't be accomplished.
• Thus it must be a wolf in sheepskin.
• It is insane.

Facts on the AGW fraud:
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:esr.ibiblio.org+AGW

[AnonyMint]

Armstrong slamdunks on the AGW fraud:

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/02/18/global-warming-snow-everywhere-proof-now-of-global-warming-they-never-heard-about-thermodynamics/

Can you say "indoctrination" class? School has become like church, but now the religion is AGW:

https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/4911
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/12/two-high-school-students-take-on-teacher-over-climate-and-win-standing-ovation/
http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/03/14/exposing-common-core-kids-are-being-indoctrinated-with-extreme-leftist-ideology/

Problem is our only alternative for kids is christian fundamentalism, which is another mind control ideology. Are there any non-ideological private schools any where in the world today? Seriously.

On the death of socialism and the rise of the Knowledge Age, list at the 4:30 point of this video. He points out that decades ago the most admired people were the statesmen politicians, now it is the tech leaders of Jobs, Suckerberg, Satoshi, etc...

http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/29/chamath-palihapitiya-owns-5-million-in-bitcoins-wants-to-own-10-15-million/

If you listen to that entire video, you will realize that I am 100% correct.

Look at these socialists focused on AGW while that guy above is involved with all these amazing developments.

I will not let these fools waste any more of my time.

You want to see what mind control does to someone's ability to think. After all I explained to him above, he writes this:

climate change deniers are even more delusional than creationists

+1 - I could weep cold and bitter tears when I read some of the comments/posts on threads such as this.

Reminds me of Bill Hicks - had a great "fuck em" attitude, especially with regard the risks of smoking.

He died aged 32.

The difference with climate change is that the non smokers are gonna get shafted just the same - the punctual will pay the price for the tardy  

[practicaldreamer]

Does Martin Armstrong have any links to the oil industry by any chance ?

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jul/01/exxon-mobil-climate-change-sceptics-funding

[AnonyMint]

Does Martin Armstrong have any links to the oil industry by any chance ?

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jul/01/exxon-mobil-climate-change-sceptics-funding

You are thicker than a brick. Don't you realize the Capitalists (such as the major oil companies) own Obama? (you still haven't grasped the power vacuum of democracy) They present you with an false dichotomy illusion (Hegelian dialectic) analogous to the good salesman and bad salesman trick at car dealers.

I wasn't lobbied by the oil industry (I even stopped communication with my own father decade or more ago, who was a high ranking oil industry attorney). And you are too thick to understand the logic I have presented to you upthread.

I guarantee you that your socialism is going to kill millions more people over the next 20 years than climate will.

Your Malthusian fear has never been true in recorded human history. The Malthusians were always wrong. For example, Wikipedia the Luddites. Whereas, government has killed upwards of 250 million at least.

It doesn't matter what I write, your mind is not free. It is controlled already.

Edit: it is ironic that socialists bemoan the Capitalists who capture the government (e.g. big oil companies who help cause AGW in their view), yet then they think somehow they can vote to regulate those Capitalists, but those Capitalists are in control of the voting via their ownership of the major media. Even when socialists get regulation it is always the Capitalists who game the system, e.g. Obama was handing out of carbon tax exclusions to his friends while closing coal electric generation plants of those who are not his friends. Thus socialism is an insoluble failure by itself. It needs a counter-balancing force otherwise it is entirely gamed and controlled by those who step in to fill the power vacuum.

[CoinCube]

So there must be this contentionism between socialism and anarchism

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
 -Bob Dylan

[AnonyMint]

Socialism at its best preventing cures for cancer:

http://www.nestmann.com/why-it-took-more-than-30-years-to-confirm-vitamin-c-fights-cancer

How many people die of cancer practicaldreamer?

[Impaler]

Mint:  Your links are just for more anti-socialism political screeds similar to what your stating, no actual evidence that refutes AGW is presented.

[CoinCube]

Obviously it wasn't sufficiently profitable for the free market to promote a cheap and readily available alternative, so the companies didn't promote it.

I don't think the example above is the best example of failed socialiasm. The failure to research/exploit a cheep effective generic medication is a common one in medicine. The costs of human controlled trials are very high. There is no financial incentive for free actors to pay for this research research as there is no mechanism for them to recoup their investment.

Indeed one could make a strong case that the solution to this problem is actually better or smarter socialism. Right now our patchwork solution is to fund studies of promising generic medications through top down government research grants NIH funding and others. Obviously things are missed/overlooked with any attempt to top down control aspects of the economy. In theory it would be better improve the overlying superstructure of the economy and enable free agents to do this research via an intelligent and restrained modification of patent law. This would allow researchers in this area to profit from their work.

The collapse of excessive socialism.
http://www.charlestondailymail.com/Opinion/Commentary/201307220166

We who love Detroit...were all complicit.  Some people would rather be the king of nothing than a part of something.

Versus

The chaos of excessive anarchy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/18/pakistan-polio-threaten-global-campaign_n_4808467.html?utm_hp_ref=world&ir=World

The latest casualty was a police constable killed protecting a team of vaccination workers... (the) beleaguered battle to eradicate polio is threatening a global, multi-billion-dollar campaign to wipe out the disease worldwide. Because of Pakistan, the virus is spreading to countries that were previously polio-free

[practicaldreamer]

The collapse of excessive socialism.
http://www.charlestondailymail.com/Opinion/Commentary/201307220166

 I now understand the way in which you use the term "socialist" Coincube - its a very broad usage of the term.

Can I just give you a few examples of how we in Europe might use certain terms ?

      1) Public enteprise (socialist)


      2)Public Private enterprise (capitalist)


       3)Private enterprise (capitalist)



   I'm not trying to teach you how to suck eggs - there are obviously cultural differences here   - only it seems to me a bit far fetched to blame the problems of Detroit on socialism - but I suppose it depends on how you define the term.



 

[AnonyMint]

Mint:  Your links are just for more anti-socialism political screeds similar to what your stating, no actual evidence that refutes AGW is presented.

No they were writings about the fraud that was discovered, about the lack of science in their claims, about them withholding the source data, etc..

You still have forgotten that no one can prove AGW is true, because it is also impossible to prove it is false. And a follow-up explanation on why climate science is meta-theories and isnot falsifiable w.r.t. AGW.

So we end up in a political battle instead.

This is why the elite pick this sort of junk science propaganda to wage this Hegelian dialectic for us to waste our time on. Then they even force the AGW side to be indoctrinated on the youth in the schools.

If you are going to be this stupid+myopic (about the foolishness of falling into that unfalsifiable trap that causes us to bicker with politics), I don't want to have anything more to do with you. Because all you socialists can accomplish is talk and steal. Look at your Freicoin. It is not winning. Stupid design, it will not be popular to have the savers' funds taken from their accounts in demurrage. I am not a loser who has to steal to get my outcome. I get my desired outcome by crossing the Rubicon and conquering with competition. Socialists whine about the way it should be and then gang up to go steal it to their desired (failed) outcome.

Proverbs 1:11-19

Contemporary English Version (CEV)

    11 when they say,
“Come on! Let’s gang up
and kill somebody,
    just for the fun of it!
12 They’re well and healthy now,
    but we’ll finish them off
    once and for all.
13 We’ll take their valuables
    and fill our homes
    with stolen goods.
14 If you join our gang,
    you’ll get your share.”

15 Don’t follow anyone like that
    or do what they do.
16 They are in a big hurry
to commit some crime,
    perhaps even murder.
17 They are like a bird
that sees the bait,
    but ignores the trap.[a]
18 They gang up to murder someone,
    but they are the victims.
19 The wealth you get from crime
    robs you of your life.

I have now shifted to action, because this is the only way to destroy you (socialists). Bye.

This is my last post in this thread. Have fun with your efforts to destroy the world. May you live in interesting times (that is a Chinese curse).

https://cryptocrypt.org/index.php?topic=128.msg5025#msg5025

My essay is three sentences. rpietila understands the value of efficiency.

Most people don't realize that democracy is a power vacuum where those who are elected are controlled by the financial realities. Thus it is delusion to think that the vote of those who are less vested in the financial realities is equal in terms of outcome. Due to the power-law distribution of wealth this delusion is necessary to appease the emotions of the masses when the voting group does not exclude the masses.

https://cryptocrypt.org/index.php?topic=128.msg5365#msg5365

I don't think rpietila should award any BTC to me because my understanding of the macro economic game theory is that democracy is a "winner take all" paradigm. And conclude that the most efficient structure is a Benevolent Dictator for Life, when that dictator creates a decentralized freedom paradigm, e.g. when Caesar crossed the Rubicon. If you dig into my linked threads, you can gain a deeper perspective. However most all of you are probably socialists because we are in peaking socialism, thus you would find it difficult to appreciate my logic.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/02/21/ineptocracy/

[thaaanos]

Mint:  Your links are just for more anti-socialism political screeds similar to what your stating, no actual evidence that refutes AGW is presented.

No they were writings about the fraud that was discovered, about the lack of science in their claims, about them withholding the source data, etc..

You still have forgotten that no one can prove AGW is true, because it is also impossible to prove it is false.

So we end up in a political battle instead.

This is why the elite pick this sort of junk science propaganda to wage this Hegelian dialectic for us to waste our time on. Then they even force the AGW side to be indoctrinated on the youth in the schools.

If you are going to be this stupid, I don't want to have anything more to do with you.

I have now shifted to action, because this is the only way to destroy you (socialists). Bye.

This is my last post in this thread. Have fun with your efforts to destroy the world. May you live in interesting times (that is a Chinese curse).

Damn all this Chinese comies riding a bicycle to work all those years, finally they saw their social errors and make proper capitalistic SUVs now days, if only its not too late to emit more CO2 and stave off the coming Ice Age.
If they can see it why can't you ? You socialist evangelists?

[thaaanos]

I guarantee you that your socialism is going to kill millions more people over the next 20 years than climate will.

So what, Ideas are Lethal. It is a sweet death.

[CoinCube]

I now understand the way in which you use the term "socialist" Coincube - its a very broad usage of the term.

Can I just give you a few examples of how we in Europe might use certain terms ?

      1) Public enteprise (socialist)
      2)Public Private enterprise (capitalist)
      3)Private enterprise (capitalist)

   I'm not trying to teach you how to suck eggs - there are obviously cultural differences here   - only it seems to me a bit far fetched to blame the problems of Detroit on socialism - but I suppose it depends on how you define the term.

Your first link, the building of the Three Gorges Dam, is socialism we agree.
 
Your second link, however, is an example of private capture and use of taxation powers. This is simply socialism dressed up and disguised as capitalism.

Definition of Socialism:
A political theory advocating the collective administration of the means of production, distribution of goods, and individual behavior.

Most people think of socialism as aid for the poor, however, it is really just collective administration. This administrative power includes taxation power. In your example a corporation captured this power and used it on those poor folks living on the island. Eventually the people rebelled.

The corporation then shifted its strategy and got the government to buy them out which dispersed the cost to the larger UK taxpayer (again more corporate socialism). With a larger pool to draw from it provoked less resistance and we see the power vacuum in action.    
From Wikipedia on the Skye Bridge Protests:

The campaign included mass protests and a prolonged non-payment campaign, and continued as long as the tolls. A toll-collector interviewed by the BBC in 2005 said that abuse of collectors by motorists had been commonplace. Numerous toll opponents were cited for refusing to pay the toll, with around 500 being arrested and 130 subsequently convicted of non-payment. Among those charged was Clodagh Mackenzie, an elderly lady from whom the land necessary for the bridge's arrival in Skye had been compulsorily purchased.

Scottish Transport Minister Nicol Stephen (eventually) announced that the bridge had been purchased for approximately £27 million, and toll collection immediately ceased.[4] During the preceding decade £33.3 million in tolls had been collected. Figures obtained by the BBC under freedom of information laws showed the consortium's operating costs on the bridge during this period had been only £3.5 million

Sounds like anarchism battling against socialism to me

In the United States we are offered the same false dichotomy in our political parties. The Republicans are pseudocapitalist just like the builders of the Skye Bridge and socialism always seems to grow under their leadership. They redirect the benefits towards friendly corporate interest via bailouts and debt. Democrats are more honest in their socialism and it is more appropriately directed to the poor but this comes at the high cost of socialism growing even more wildly and unsustainably then it does under Republicans.
      
At a time when the growth of socialism is causing global systemic instability we are left with the wonderful choice of slower growing misdirected socialism versus fast growing appropriately directed socialism. Read the 100 ways both parties are the same

The true opposition are the libertarian and Ron Paul supporters in the Republican party and the individual rights supporters (Snowden supporters, IT community, open source movement) in the Democratic party. Not surprisingly both groups are sidelined and marginalized.

Detroit is an example of socialism gone wrong. It's attempt to top down force integration (while well intentioned) actually resulted in the the city becoming less diverse while simultaneously decimating the tax base. It then spent its way into bankruptcy via social spending and social benefits.

Definition of Anarchism:
a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be wasteful and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups.

Anarchism is not inherently superior to socialism. Contentionism argues both are needed. However, as we live in an era of unrestrained socialism anarchist solutions are probably what is needed to restore balance in our time.
  

May you live in interesting times (that is a Chinese curse).

This is a myth.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times

None of us are right about all issues all of the time.

[practicaldreamer]

Your second link, however, is an example of private capture and use of taxation powers. This is simply socialism dressed up and disguised as capitalism.

Just to be clear - socialism is built upon the public ownership of the means of production. It used to be [for example] enshrined within Clause 4 of the Labour Party's (UK) constitution - :- " To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service."

   The Labour Party dropped Clause 4 years ago - thereby effectively depriving the British electorate of any choice come election time. When Clause 4 was dropped, so was socialism. It is nowhere present any longer. The UK was bought up by the US during financial deregulation back in 1986, thanks to Margaret Thatcher/Sir Alan Walters (Martin Armstrong ?) - we certainly can't blame the state we are in on socialism.

The Public/Private enterprise debacle as posted in my second link re.the Skye Bridge, to my mind, is most definitely not a failure of socialism as such. An example of how the private ownership of the means of production is able to sequestrate funds from the public purse ? Yes, definitely.
    The Skye Bridge was effectively owned by the Bank of America - when I last looked there was no public ownership of the Bank of America - its a private enterprise. The Bank of America is a bastion of US capitalism.

  It just seems a bit disingenuous to be blaming all this on "socialism" - lets call a spade a spade hey ?

   Its as clear as the day is long where the blame for our current economic turmoil lay - it lay with good old fashioned capitalism and the concentration of the ownership and control of the means of production in the hands of private and immensely wealthy individuals.

[CoinCube]

Just to be clear - socialism is built upon the public ownership of the means of production.

This is largely false. Socialism with public ownership of the means of production is a somewhat different philosophy. See the Definition of Communism. At its heart modern Socialism is about public administration and control (via taxation, regulation, and redistribution) of industry. It is neutral in regards to ownership.

The Skye Bridge was effectively owned by the Bank of America - when I last looked there was no public ownership of the Bank of America - its a private enterprise. The Bank of America is a bastion of US capitalism.

It just seems a bit disingenuous to be blaming all this on "socialism" - lets call a spade a spade hey ?

You are confusing proximate and ultimate cause  
The easiest way to find the ultimate cause (as with so many things in life) is to follow the money.
Where does the money ultimately come from? Who paid the bill? If the answer is government (via taxes, spending, or debt) the process is Socialism.
The winner in your example was Bank of America. Corporate socialism and Welfare socialism are not fundamentally different processes. The only difference is who happened to profit from that round of Socialism's taxation, regulation, redistribution, and debt.

we certainly can't blame the state we are in on socialism.

We can you just have not yet realized it. Consider reading the two links in the OP once more. Here is the fundamental critical insight.

“We don't realize we are stealing from each other (and ourself) via failure of fitness when we pool and centralize our capital with debt, bonds, insurance, and centralized governance, then we are astonished that the system steals, express consternation, deny culpability, and thus reach for ‘solutions’ which are more of the same poison.”

[CoinCube]

As the following was largely derived from the ideas discussed upthread I am reposting it here for those interested.

The Future of Cryptocurrency: A Contentionist Analysis

With cryptocurrency we appear to be on at the beginnings of something entirely new. There is no denying that the technology is both novel and potentially revolutionary. Its very nature threatens the long held government monopoly on currency. We indeed live in interesting times. Today we see new cryptocurrencies released on an almost daily basis. Will any of these be valuable? Will the instigator Bitcoin retain its value? The purpose of this post is to analyze cryptocurrency using the principles of Contentionism and make informed predictions about the role of cryptocurrency in the future.  To predict the future we must first fully grasp the present. Let’s start with a look at the strengths and weakness of the future contenders.

Centralized Electronic Fiat <---> Hybrid Currency <---> Anonymous Distributed Cryptocurrency

Electronic Fiat: Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated
Fiat currency despite its bad press has strengths as well as weaknesses. Its advantages include easily reversible transactions with the ability to go to the court system in cases of fraud or theft. Theoretically (on a purely technical basis) fiat should be a comparatively a cheap system to run without the high cost of a proof of work system. These strengths are offset by some very large disadvantages. Electronic fiat is centralized with a single point of failure. It is non-anonymous  with significant implications regarding privacy. Its largest weakness, however, is that it can be (and is) debased at will by the central issuer.

Anonymous Distributed Cryptocurrency (ADC): The bane of centralized control
Such a currency is decentralized, anonymous, and untraceable. Decentralization removes the possibility of a single point of failure. Anonymity protects privacy concerns. Such a currency would be protected from any centralized debasement efforts and be essentially untaxable. As a small predictable debasement is desirable in a currency this could be done in a decentralized fashion. These benefits come at a price. The decentralized nature of the system requires expensive proof of work computations to protect the network. This must be paid for either via monetary inflation, or transaction fees.  Transaction times must also be slower than those of a fiat system. Finally, the direct challenge to tax collection may cause governments to outlaw these in some countries. Despite this it seems very possible that anonymous distributed cryptocurrency will come to dominate the virtual economy.

Hybrid Currency Systems:  A non-anonymous coin for the physical economy
Many cryptocurrencies will try to take a middle ground and hope to retain their decentralization while falling into line with regulation. Such a system will lose anonymity while (hopefully) retaining decentralization. If decentralization can be maintained it can be taxed but it cannot be debased by a central authority.  Lack of anonymity may open up the possibility for reversal of transactions (via mandated court order). Any such Hybrid system regardless of design will be vulnerable capture and forced conversion to electronic fiat (more on this below). If it can survive centralization efforts a hybrid system may come to dominate the physical economy.

Given these features what will be the use of each of these forms of currency in the future?

Electronic Fiat: Will likely be preferred for transactions that are high risk and have a high likelihood of transaction reversal. It will also be used to pay taxes. We need only look at the preference of ASIC buyers to use credit cards and the current low price of Bitcoins on MtGox to see this.

Anonymous Distributed Cryptocurrency: Will find a home in the virtual economy. It is likely to be used for nonphysical transactions and for small transaction with a limited need for reversibility. It will also be used for the purchase of illicit goods as well as a mechanism for tax avoidance. In times of government insanity (massive taxation, unrestrained fiat debasement, extra) such currencies will offer an escape hatch for those looking to flee centralized control.

Hybrid Currency Systems:  Hybrid systems will be decentralized but lacking anonymity will be inherently venerable to centralization and government capture. Sufficient government effort can force centralization of any non-anonymous system. Government will be loath to give up the power of money printing. It will thus have a strong tendency to capture any strong hybrid system so that it can be converted into electronic fiat. A Hybrid system can only survive if this tendency is checked.

Understanding the future possibilities is facilitated by an understanding of the underlying dynamics of Contentionism in the economy. Contentionism is the realization that socialism (top-down organization) must exist, while acknowledging the cyclical failures of socialism and the necessary counter-balancing force of anarchism. The concept of Contentionism is explored in depth in the Economic Devastation thread so I will refer readers there for further explanation.  

Future currencies are likely to trifurcate into one of the three classes discussed above. Value will likewise shift based on the underlying dynamic balance in the economy. In times of debt free responsible governance, fiat will be preferred and rise in relative value.  In times such as ours cryptocurrencies are likely to dominate. Governments will have the ability to destroy any successful hybrid system via forced conversion to electronic fiat. However to do so would force much of the value stored there into anonymous distributed cryptocurrencies (beyond government reach) this fact may or may not restrain government from attempting such actions.  

[Kaligulax]

Due to the nature of our online ministry we try to keep abreast of what's going on in the world. Many of the questions our readers ask have to do with news items and how world events fit into biblical prophecy. This keeps us "on our toes" researching and reading several news sources.

[CoinCube]

This post is currently the second google search result when searching for "Economic Devastation"

https://www.google.com/#q=economic+devistation