Happy May Day aka International Workers' Day.
Mayday (Fr. m'aidez) is also the international distress signal equivalent to SOS in Morse code.
Capitalism — "It's every man for himself." (self interest, rational utility maximization)
Socialism — "We're all in this together." (common good, solidarity, voluntary cooperation for mutual benefit)
Monthly Review
Why Socialism?
Albert Einstein
15 comments:
Tom take out the word "capitalism" here and put in 'libertarianism" then you'll have it correct....
There is just as much cooperation going on via 'capitalism' as 'socialism'... capitalists will cooperate 24/7/365 with people who they think have 'money' to pay for their produce.. its not 'charity' but it is manifestly cooperative. ..
"Capitalism" is the correct word here. Capitalism means favoring capital (including land) as an economic factor over labor. Socialism means favoring workers as a factor. Feudalism is favoring land over the labor (prior to capital as a major factor).
There are various approaches to "capitalism," but as long as it is actually capitalism, capital is privileged and this comes down to the prioritization of property rights above civil and human rights and prioritization of property over people in policy.
In a truly mixed economy, there would be an equal prioritization of people and property.
Under socialism people are prioritized over property.
Even economically, capitalism is uneconomic and doesn't make sense other than for the people profiting from it.
Economically, capitalism is based on efficiency of capital rather than economic efficiently with respect to the society that the economy serves. Focusing on efficiency of capital is inefficient overall since it wastes the most most precious resource of a society, the people that make it up, by targeting labor bargaining power so as to increase profit share.
Today is a good day to re-read Michal Kalecki's Political Aspects of Full Employment.
The libertarian non-aggression principle: EVERY person and his/her possessions and body are safe from murder, assault, theft and pollution at the hands of private or government criminals and tortfeasors. This allows for and facilitates voluntary group activity safe from the normal ravages of the human race.
Socialism: No person is even allowed to consider his/her body as their own much less think of his/her possessions safe from the whims of the mob, dictator, or voting majority. This ubiquitous lack of physical safety leads directly to social anomie and if taken literally, leads directly to the nation-wide Auschwitz that were the USSR and Mao's China.
Clearly, the only defense you statists have against these simple and obvious truths is the distortion of the language and the unambiguous meaning of well known words.
More utopian black and white thinking that distorts the issues.
Black and white thinking? You are either being assaulted or you are not. Others are either permitted by law to assault you for non-criminal behavior or they are prohibited from doing so. This does not distort any issues. Obfuscation of simple and well understood words and concepts distorts the issues.
You guys dare not even begin to explain how I am distorting "the issues".
Rothbard or Stalin.
Did you read the Einstein article? He brings in the grey areas that need to be considered, in addition to showing how the existing system in not working for workers, which is most people.
The Libertarian solution is utopian in that there is no practical plan for getting from here to there and very little reason to think that anarchs-capitalism won't lead to an oligarchy of property ownership.
Yes, I know you think you have a practical plan. Keep on working it and good luck with getting people to enough people to adopt to make an experiment.
Even if it were to gain traction, it will fail on account of the assumptions being overly simplistic.
Bob, you write:
"his/her possessions"
Under heavy Socialism no one has those so it is not-applicable....
this issue is finding appropriate balance/compromise between where people advocating from both sides of pure socialism and pure libertarianism are coming from...
Capitalism is a type of economic management philosophy not foundational.... you could operate a socialistic system via capitalist principles...
rsp,
Tom,
Tell "the good Samaritan" that he did such a good job helping the guy who got waylaid on the road to Jericho that now he had to patrol the road everyday 24/7 for no pay... forget it!
rsp,
Democracy as defined by a libertarian/propertarian: "the whims of the mob, dictator, or voting majority". (May 1, 2015 at 11:40 AM)
Exactly like I said a few days earlier: democracy comes from the Greek, it means "rule by the people". If for one "the people" is the same as "the rabble", "the boorish proletariat", "the mob", then democracy becomes "mob rule".
I couldn't have asked for a more credible witnesses.
Democracy as defined by a libertarian/propertarian: "the whims of the mob, dictator, or voting majority".
Like southern slavery, Jim Crow laws and rule of Iraq by majority Shi'ites.
http://antiwar.com/blog/2015/01/26/the-real-head-drilling-butchers-of-iraq/
you could operate a socialistic system via capitalist principles...
rsp,
A group of people could purchase a 10 square mile piece of land and agree to share everything. They could practice a lifestyle hated by the local majority but due to enforcement of the non-aggression principle, they would be free of violent aggression by the majority. I believe I've said that about 57 times.
Regarding the horrors of majority rule....haven't gay people suffered for centuries at the hand of a vicious electoral majority? As I recall, many states have bans on gay marriage as the result of majority rule ballot initiatives.
It's like you guys have never even thought about this problem.
1. So Einstein’s thinking about society and politics is just as muddled, purposefully sloppy and dishonest as your average statist. It is preposterous to suggest that the non-aggression principle which takes aggressive violence completely off the table and strictly enforces against aggressive violence somehow results in a lack of social cohesion. It is even more preposterous to suggest that eliminating the non-aggression principle and granting a monopoly on aggressive violence to a content-free voting majority (who could turn out to be any group of idiots) improves social cohesion.
2. Einstein writes:
Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society.
That is the nub of our entire disagreement because Einstein is completely wrong. Rich exploiters ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS use the state apparatus to enforce and maintain their hegemony. It is the very existence of this state apparatus (most often put in place by “progressives”) that creates the power apparatus which is invariably captured by the rich and powerful. Without such an apparatus, all the rich can do is plead with people to buy their stuff. If no one buys, they go bankrupt. If they pollute, they are subject to strict liability. Rich people using the state apparatus to exploit, rob and steal is the antithesis of the non-aggression principle. You guys are compelled to obfuscate these simple distinctions in order to maintain your silly paradigm. It’s getting old.
See “Triumph of Conservatism” which I bought in 1973.
http://tinyurl.com/kjtmleh
Yeah, that guy Einstein sure was a dummbkopf, if not a dummer esel.
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