Why do people in USA fear socialism so much?

[FirstAscent]

Assertions, assertions but no arguments. There's no meat, nothing for me to respond to. I notice that you didn't respond to any of my points either. *shrugs*

Hence the reason I've given you a month to cogitate on it, as you'll need to bone up on some actual material external to a political ideology. Put down the books on being libertarian, and educate yourself on issues that are independent of political ideology. Become the mechanic, so to speak. He knows how to fix your car. And he also knows how to take you for a ride if you choose to remain ignorant.

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[Hawker]

Assertions, assertions but no arguments. There's no meat, nothing for me to respond to. I notice that you didn't respond to any of my points either. *shrugs*

Hence the reason I've given you a month to cogitate on it, as you'll need to bone up on some actual material external to a political ideology. Put down the books on being libertarian, and educate yourself on issues that are independent of political ideology. Become the mechanic, so to speak. He knows how to fix your car. And he also knows how to take you for a ride if you choose to remain ignorant.

Its not really a valid argument to say "I read a book and you should read it too."  I can read "The Wealth of Nations," agree with everything Adam Smith said and argue the case for free trade.  But I can't tell you "Go read 'The Wealth of Nations'" if you disagree with me.

Back on topic, a lot of the posts here seem to be using 'socialism' to mean pretty well anything they disagree with and there are lots of different ideas about what to disagree with.  I'd define socialism as "common ownership of the means of production in society" and I see opposing socialism as being akin to opposing feudalism.  Its a concept that was tried but a better system came along so why bother even thinking about it.

[FirstAscent]

Its not really a valid argument to say "I read a book and you should read it too."  I can read "The Wealth of Nations," agree with everything Adam Smith said and argue the case for free trade.  But I can't tell you "Go read 'The Wealth of Nations'" if you disagree with me.

I didn't tell him to read any particular book. I told him to stop reading books that only preach political ideology, and instead learn about problems that exist in the world today. How can he claim his political ideology is adequate to address the problems of the world if his only knowledge is derived from books which preach a political ideology, as opposed to deep knowledge about processes?

Every time I ask him how such and such issue can be addressed by his pet political ideology, he trots out his solution to pollution, mentions security forces and private courts. That demonstrates a rather shallow awareness of actual detailed processes. As an example, when I mention the environment, I'm more often than not referring to issues besides pollution. But in his view of the world, protecting the environment means preventing pollution to a neighboring property.

He himself admitted that he need not be an expert, but only be able to identify an expert when he sees one. Fallacious thinking at its best, when one wishes to argue in favor of their favorite political ideology. The world is not sustained on politics, but it certainly is harmed by politics. But the world can be sustained by understanding it in depth, and then, in a finely nuanced manner, fitting finely crafted solutions to those problems.

I'm disappointed in your post, Hawker.

[JA37]

Socialism destroys any natural incentive that comes from human desire and puts it in the hands of elected bureaucrats that are incapable of true failure. They get paid no matter how well their mandates work and can only be fired every term or so. That's assuming they are held accountable. There's no competition to do that.

In conclusion, due to little true accountability and the inability to fail, socialist services are inherently inferior in terms of product output and the vast amount of inefficiency required to generate said product.

That's true. Financial rewards are the only motivators for humans. No one ever does anything if they don't get paid. All humans lack pride, honour, self esteem and other things that would make them do a good job in any situation.

[Hawker]

Its not really a valid argument to say "I read a book and you should read it too."  I can read "The Wealth of Nations," agree with everything Adam Smith said and argue the case for free trade.  But I can't tell you "Go read 'The Wealth of Nations'" if you disagree with me.

I didn't tell him to read any particular book. I told him to stop reading books that only preach political ideology, and instead learn about problems that exist in the world today. How can he claim his political ideology is adequate to address the problems of the world if his only knowledge is derived from books which preach a political ideology, as opposed to deep knowledge about processes?

Every time I ask him how such and such issue can be addressed by his pet political ideology, he trots out his solution to pollution, mentions security forces and private courts. That demonstrates a rather shallow awareness of actual detailed processes. As an example, when I mention the environment, I'm more often than not referring to issues besides pollution. But in his view of the world, protecting the environment means preventing pollution to a neighboring property.

He himself admitted that he need not be an expert, but only be able to identify an expert when he sees one. Fallacious thinking at its best, when one wishes to argue in favor of their favorite political ideology. The world is not sustained on politics, but it certainly is harmed by politics. But the world can be sustained by understanding it in depth, and then, in a finely nuanced manner, fitting finely crafted solutions to those problems.

I'm disappointed in your post, Hawker.

What I was trying to say is that asking someone to read a book that doesn't conform to their existing ideas is counter productive.  It may be that our ideology comes first, then we choose books accordingly. 

Since its very rare for someone to change their ideology, all you can do is discuss implementation issues.  Its very easy to disagree with someone 100% on ideology and still end up agreeing on the same course of action.  Its also hard for an ideologue to develop his ideas if you don't force him to focus on the nitty gritty issues, for example food regulation is a thought provoker for libertarians and and dependency culture is a thought provoker for lefties.

[GideonGono]

This is awesome. A "capitalist" vs "socialist" thread and it hasn't devolved into a "yo mama" contest! 

The god of bitcoin should reward us with a rally!

[niko]

Not to be unfeeling, but natural selection ocurrs for many reasons, mostly so no ecosystem will become overpopulated is my thinking.

Why do you think that there is a reason and a goal behind the process that we call natural selection? Is this some God-like creature with an agenda that conveniently fits your particular view of the world? No, it's just our model of some of the relations in the ecosystem. Natural selection doesn't care and doesn't know about anything, including overpopulation. It only makes sense in retrospect.

[Blackout]

Ideally, a good system other that the true free anarchist state with no to minimal government would be a combination of free market capitalism combined with some socialism.

Before you start screaming, let me explain:

As we have seen - The United States is supposedly free republic run on a free market capitalism system,  but with the introduction of the corporation as a legal fictional 'person' - capitalism at some point leads to corporatism where large wealthy corporations and plutocrats yield so much power that they basically turn the system into a forced type of socialism by the very force of their influence and slow take over of government from the needs of "the people" and the free market to the wants of the corporations which then manipulates and skews the market - and so it is no longer a truly free market.  We can see this in the trend of board members getting mega million dollar paychecks for companies performing terribly. In a true free market system these board members would be fired not rewarded.  So the capitalism system can eventually become a reverse leach system where the super rich slowly transfer wealth from, while also off loading debt to the actual working class.  This is happening right now.

Also - not all systems should be for profit.  Some public systems should be considered social needs and therefor not run privately for profit and even incur some losses if need be for the good of the public and community.

Examples: firehouses & firefighters. If they were run solely privately and for profit (which they were at one time)...  very bad decisions could be made such as "that fire is not profitable for us to put out" or, you don't agree to our new raise in monthly dues? Your house went on fire, haha too bad for you.

The insurance industry is a huge scam as well and needs more control and overview. If it were fully private you could go and take out a policy on someone else's house burning down and of course this would lead to a very bad conflict of interest since it would be in your interest and you would profit if your neighbors house you took a policy out on burned down.  This seems like a common sense law to make and it is not allowed currently, yet, this goes on all the time on wall street with ridiculous derivatives on derivatives and basically "profitable bets on failure" that offer certain individuals no motive to perform well for the stock holders they are supposed to represent.  This should be outlawed, but hey, it's good old blooded capitalism right?

But back to the damage of fully free market social systems and why they shouldn't be.  Bad news: This can and did happen. The firehouses and firemen should be considered a socialistic type system as the public utilities.  Some argue that private utilities would induce better quality utilities but this argument never holds water because all companies are responsible for are to make profit not to make good product so the same thing would most likely happen to utilities that have happened to many many big corporations.  In order for the top to squeeze out more profit, terrible decisions are made and quality becomes inferior. What's to stop companies from selling polluted water to offload from one of their other factories? In some sense this is already going on with flouridation in water.  This was NOT a decision made for health benefit as many would like to believe but by tricky lobbyists who wanted a way to turn a deadly liability (how to get rid of toxic flouride - a byproduct of many industrial activities) into a profit - "we'll sell it to the government and put it in the water!"

Nothing stops corporations from doing the wrong thing because they are like zombies, zombies only want brains and corporations only want profit - money, at any cost without consideration to the good of the community or humanity as a whole because corporations are considered people under the law or "Persons", not Natural Persons (real human beings). So basically corporations have no brain, no heart, no consciousness, no conscious, no responsibility, and should never have been given this status of a person. More foul play and damage has been caused by this than anything else.

True uncontrolled capitalism, if it could work, would only work with individuals, not with corporations in play.  Once corporations come into play, some form of socialism has already begun at that point.

A true government of the people by the people and for the people would allow the socialization of some utilities because these few things are in the commonwealth of all.  Water processing plants should not be run for profit, but a general function of government for the people with checks on quality by the people. Police should not be for profit. We can see what is happening  to our for profit police and jail systems which have been privatized.  More police are not doing their duty of upholding the constitution and protecting citizens but rather doing the duty of collecting revenue in the form of issuing as many tickets as possible.  Jails are private for profit systems and have a quota and an incentive to be filled as it's good for the jail / enforcement "business" bottom line - but not good for the people when half of the people in jail are there for trivial or non violent crimes while the "enforcers" continue to commit crimes but get immunity or a "get out of jail free card" from their buddies.

The game 'Monopoly' was made to teach true capitalism with no restraints. One person ends up owning the board - and then collapse - the game is over, as there is no one left to get money from therefore making the money worthless, and it all goes back in the box.  Game over.

Total socialism, ends pretty much the same way.

So in or to avoid total collapse, I believe professor plum, in the study, with the candlestick, must study history and see that a combination of the two are needed with priority always being towards individual liberty, with minimal government to oversee peaceful commonwealth systems only.

 

[FirstAscent]

Its not really a valid argument to say "I read a book and you should read it too."  I can read "The Wealth of Nations," agree with everything Adam Smith said and argue the case for free trade.  But I can't tell you "Go read 'The Wealth of Nations'" if you disagree with me.

I didn't tell him to read any particular book. I told him to stop reading books that only preach political ideology, and instead learn about problems that exist in the world today. How can he claim his political ideology is adequate to address the problems of the world if his only knowledge is derived from books which preach a political ideology, as opposed to deep knowledge about processes?

Every time I ask him how such and such issue can be addressed by his pet political ideology, he trots out his solution to pollution, mentions security forces and private courts. That demonstrates a rather shallow awareness of actual detailed processes. As an example, when I mention the environment, I'm more often than not referring to issues besides pollution. But in his view of the world, protecting the environment means preventing pollution to a neighboring property.

He himself admitted that he need not be an expert, but only be able to identify an expert when he sees one. Fallacious thinking at its best, when one wishes to argue in favor of their favorite political ideology. The world is not sustained on politics, but it certainly is harmed by politics. But the world can be sustained by understanding it in depth, and then, in a finely nuanced manner, fitting finely crafted solutions to those problems.

I'm disappointed in your post, Hawker.

What I was trying to say is that asking someone to read a book that doesn't conform to their existing ideas is counter productive.  It may be that our ideology comes first, then we choose books accordingly. 

Since its very rare for someone to change their ideology, all you can do is discuss implementation issues.  Its very easy to disagree with someone 100% on ideology and still end up agreeing on the same course of action.  Its also hard for an ideologue to develop his ideas if you don't force him to focus on the nitty gritty issues, for example food regulation is a thought provoker for libertarians and and dependency culture is a thought provoker for lefties.

You're only underscoring my point. I recommend learning about the processes and problems that are external to political ideology, thus allowing intelligent discussion and application to address those problems, given knowledge about the processes.

Here's an example. Imagine a microworld in which the only things which exist are diseases, and bookstores which contain books on diseases and books on political ideology. Let's say that every time the conversation turns to the subject of treatment of disease, your opponent trots out his favorite political mantras and explains how it solves heart disease, and through your conversations with him, it's obvious that his knowledge of heart disease is superficial at best. More to the point, he appears to be completely unaware that other diseases exist at all. Thus, you tell him to put down his book on libertarian views, and start broadening and deepening his knowledge on disease, so he'll be in a better position to evaluate the efficacy of his chosen tool (libertarianism), at addressing the problems in this microworld (diseases in this case).

[NghtRppr]

Thus, you tell him to put down his book on libertarian views make your own point instead of expecting others to do your job for you

Every time someone asks me about how courts or police or some other thing will work under libertarianism, I don't say "go read XYZ". Why? Because if I can't put it into my own words, there's nothing to argue about. Simply saying "go educate yourself", other than being incredibly rude and condescending, earns you absolutely no points in the debate. Either make a point or admit you can't.

[FirstAscent]

Thus, you tell him to put down his book on libertarian views make your own point instead of expecting others to do your job for you

Every time someone asks me about how courts or police or some other thing will work under libertarianism, I don't say "go read XYZ". Why? Because if I can't put it into my own words, there's nothing to argue about. Simply saying "go educate yourself", other than being incredibly rude and condescending, earns you absolutely no points in the debate. Either make a point or admit you can't.

I have made plenty of points, but you had me on ignore, remember? I'm neither interested in regurgitating a lot of material which builds a case through fact after fact, dynamic after dynamic. One just needs to be motivated to learn a lot, not just a snippet, which is all you'll ever learn in this forum. The world is far more complex that forum snippets.

I do not agree that forum points are adequate. Why is it my responsibility to rewrite whole books?

But if you want an example of me explaining one complex interaction, here's one:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40394.msg509546#msg509546

[NghtRppr]

I'm neither interested in regurgitating a lot of material which builds a case through fact after fact, dynamic after dynamic.

Then there's nothing left to discuss. I'll simply wait for you to say something relevant and talk to you then.

[FirstAscent]

I'm neither interested in regurgitating a lot of material which builds a case through fact after fact, dynamic after dynamic.

Then there's nothing left to discuss. I'll simply wait for you to say something relevant and talk to you then.

I'm always saying things that are relevant. One of the relevant things I've recently said in this thread is the following:

Knowledge about a specific political ideology in the absence of real world data and how processes in the world work does not make you qualified to slap your overly principled and overly simplistic political ideology on the world and think it will fix everything. I don't care what you choose to learn external to your favorite political ideology, but please, go learn it, and then suggest a solution to it without claiming that your solution is the panacea to all the other world's problems as well.

[NghtRppr]

Knowledge about a specific political ideology in the absence of real world data and how processes in the world work does not make you qualified to slap your overly principled and overly simplistic political ideology on the world and think it will fix everything.

That's the first time I've heard "overly principled" used as a derogatory. I guess I should just let whimsy guide my actions? How exactly is libertarianism overly simplistic? What does it ignore and why shouldn't it be ignored? I also never claimed that it will fix everything. That's utopian and unrealistic. Libertarianism is justice, not paradise.

[Anonymous]

FirstAscent, all you are doing is attacking methods based on the premise that it's based on a principled ideology. You have yet to wholly compromise any of the libertarian methods from a utilitarian perspective. You only propose status-quo intervention that does have PROVEN fallibility in the real world. While libertarian methods have yet to be truly and wholly tested.

Quite frankly, little value has been generated in this argument overall.

[GideonGono]

FirstAscent, all you are doing is attacking methods based on the premise that it's based on a principled ideology. You have yet to wholly compromise any of the libertarian methods from a utilitarian perspective. You only propose status-quo intervention that does have PROVEN fallibility in the real world. While libertarian methods have yet to be truly and wholly tested.

Quite frankly, little value has been generated in this argument overall.

+100

[johnyj]

Two extreme on the spectrum of resource allocation: (Remember that human do not produce anything, they just move resources around and consume them)

On one end, everyone get same amount of resource to consume no matter how much work they do

On the other end, those most powerful/intelligent will get all the resource and let rest of the people (who is competing resource against them) die

In normal sense, if people see their action caused other people suffering, their sympathy will stop them from going into extreme. But in a market based economy, people seldom see the direct effect of what they are doing, so generally it will tilt towards the second end



If I'm the robot maker and my robot will replace every human's work on this planet, will I kill most of them due to they are competing resources against me?

Or, I give out resources collected by my robots to those people so that they can live a better life?

[Anonymous]

Remember that human do not produce anything, they just move resources around and consume them.

No, we do produce and the produced product is called wealth. When we turn minerals and raw materials into a toy for instance, the skills and labor required to form the toy are valued and scarce and come from the ingenuity of an individual. The innovations required to make things faster and better are also valuable. They weren't there before and it would require more effort to consume raw materials directly through other means. We can make things to use LESS resources while making MORE value available to everyone as a whole.

Wealth has to be created for this to be possible. The fact is there is value that wasn't there before thus we can make the "wealth pie" bigger. Life is not a zero-sum game.

Here's another example involving record sales:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/objectivist/2011/06/14/when-it-comes-to-wealth-creation-there-is-no-pie/

[NghtRppr]

If I'm the robot maker and my robot will replace every human's work on this planet, will I kill most of them due to they are competing resources against me?

I've seen that movie.

[AyeYo]

Since its very rare for someone to change their ideology, all you can do is discuss implementation issues. 

You can't discuss implementation issues with someone that is so uneducated and/or misinformed on the subject area that they're unable to speak in anything other than very board generalities and platitudes.  That's what FirstAscent is getting it.

Moron2cash needs to educate himself in some areas of real-world issues so that he can then discuss real-world implementation of his ideology using more than this uselessly broad rhetoric.


Being a car guy, I deal with this type of stuff on automotive forms all the time.  We can't have a debate over proper turbo sizing for a given build if the people on the other side of the debate have no idea how a turbo works, can't read compressor or turbine maps, have never designed or built a turbo kit, and just keep repeating, "Yea but the 16g is fucking perfect because _____ made 99999999whp with it on his car!1!!" or "big turbos lag and small turbos suck!!1!!"  That's not a fruitful discussion and it's not intelligent debate, and it's exactly what's happening here.  Hence FA recommending him some books, so he can first know wtf he's talking about before engaging in discussion.  It's not about changing his idealogy, it's about educating himself.  I don't have to believe Relativity to read a book on quantum physics, but it'd sure as shit help me in knowing what I'm talking about if I'm going to argue against it.