socialism, property, and the state

[chequita guevara]

Not in the 1950s we didn't.

[David Floyd]

Fine, use whatever example you like. It's a fact that the average American had a far higher standard of living than the average Soviet citizen, and it's no secret that they were fed lies and propaganda covering this up.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Fine, use whatever example you like. It's a fact that the average American had a far higher standard of living than the average Soviet citizen, and it's no secret that they were fed lies and propaganda covering this up.

how would you describe the "average" american? there is a rich class, a middle class, and a poor class.

did you count street vagabonds in the "average"? or are we just talking the middle class here?

[Illyrien]

Phew, it took me a while to read all the posts. But I have a few comments...


About the Wage Labor System:
You are arguing that the Wage Labor System is disgused slavery, due to the fact that the people need to work in order to live…So please tell me, why this is not the case under Communism? Somebody has to plant the crops that will eventually feed you.

If you do not work, you get no food, such is reality. Any system where people are free to chose where to work are IMHO not slavery.


Democracy is the best form of government, since bad rulers wont sit as long on the thone of power as under more totalitarian systems like Fascism and Communism.


About the so called "aggressive West":
Arguing that the Soviet Union felt threatened is ok, I believe it…But anyone planning to use 13 nuclear warheads against Denmark as part of an aggressive first strike against the West somehow should not expect to be marked in any other way then ”Aggressive”. Please note that NATO had no plans what so ever of striking first against the WARSAWA-pact


About the nature of humans:
selfishness is what makes things happen…why would anyone start a company or dig a mine, if not to benefit from this? btw cooperation is not always as good as you claim it to be… I wonder what would happen to the prices if all companies selling cars started to cooperate….
Btw putting all those innovative (selfish) people in jail that could have started up companies would create a bit of an unemplyment problem…. :-)


About the the Russian Revolution
it might have enabled the Whites to rally more people to their evil cause.
Funny, I thoughs that some Whites where democrats…btw. Considering how many people where eventually going to get killed in the decades to come by the Reds I find it hard to define the Reds as ”Good”


About Free Beer:
”And remember, communism means free beer”
Tell me, who is going to produce the beer?



Believers in Liberalism (I think it is called Libertarians in the US) are NOT Fascist! We oppose every ideology, which have totalitarian traits, no matter if it called Communism or Fascism

[chequita guevara]

Why are you dredging up a month and a half old thread?

[Ned]

Che, I think I agree with your premise, that rights do not exist outside of government. Is this your basic argument with DL? Ned

[Ned]

All, I think the basic role of govenment is to secure the common good. From this, all else follows. Ned

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Che, I think I agree with your premise, that rights do not exist outside of government. Is this your basic argument with DL? Ned

In it's most basic form, yes. It's actually Hegel's argument. On the Philosophy of Right is a simply amazing book to read. Hegel starts with the the concept of "I" and shows how it leads to rights and civil society, i.e. government. For Hegel, we can only have rights within a state. Ideologically this can be interpreted two ways. Either we only have those rights as a state grants us or that without a state defending us, our rights are meaningless. The former argument can be taken as an explanation of the way things are or the way things should be.

Since for Hegel, the Prussian state of the Napoleanic period was the ideal state, it's a bit of a scary idea. In the wrong hands it's a very dangerous idea. But it can also be very liberating, since it takes rights out of the lofty realm of ideals and puts them in the hands of mortal men. In a democratic state, therefore, we have the rights which we grant ourselves and defend ourselves.

[David Floyd]

Please note that NATO had no plans what so ever of striking first against the WARSAWA-pact

Of course NATO had first strike warplans against Russia - they probably still do.

They were no more likely than the Soviets to carry them out, though.

[Wraith]

Another repeat already? This is really getting to be broken-record-alley, isn't it? Maybe it's about time to stop reading these politics thread, there's never anything new.

Oh, and che... Hegel?

Wraith
"Sounds like you’ve been snacking on some of the local mushrooms."
-- Albert ("Twin Peaks")

[Trotsky]

>> I'm sure you'd disagree with terms. I disagree with >> your stating that people don't have property.
Your argument is based entirely on terms and decidedly NOT on logic. It's not even an argument,
since you simply agree with him. You both want everyone to have property: you apparently differ in
degree: he wants everyone to have EQUAL property, where from your statement, I'd have to assume you
don't care if some have virtually everything, and the rest nothing. You'd probably state this in a
different way, since naturally those in power and their apologists don't want to appear as inhuman
as they are -- typically it's stated as your friend Sava does just below, in an attempt to claim
people 'inherently' have a differing will to 'work for their survival'; an attempt to essentially
make scapegoats of, or villianize some on the 'margins' of society as parasites: we all saw the
effects of this darwinist philosophy in world war 2, yet some still haven't learned the lesson. I
say that if work provided equal compensation for all, the only who wouldn't work would be the same
as those who don't in today's society: the true 'parasites', the capitalists who own the means of
production, and engage in no true labor save the control and manipulation of others to their
detriment, and by this the protection of their system of social exclusion designed to prop up their
petty egos with the mystification of 'caste' or 'class' -- you and your friends typically refer to
this (today) as being 'deserving' or 'undeserving', since again, you will rather pretend to be 'one
of the people', rather than one who seeks to manipulate them.

Or the short answer is: equal property in name, law, or right, which is what you refer to, doesn't
imply equal property in reality. I'm sure you'd like everyone poor to believe they 'have property',
when in fact all they have is your empty promise that, if they're willing to be your slave in a
low-paying job, you'll let them survive. In effect, it is little different from feudalism.

>> I say EVERYONE has property, and that is true
>> property, not false property .
Everyone doesn't have true property, because your ability to continue to own and maintain it is
dependent on a deceptively complex network of technological dependencies which are controlled by an
exceedingly small number of individuals at the top. Primarily, your ability to own property in the
first place is only made possible by your choosing to accept a subordinate position in the
employment hierarchy and in so doing, supporting the domination and monopoly by those in power.
The few in power have true property because they are not dependent on the will of the many to own
and maintain that property: if you, as a subordinate, disagree with them and are unwilling to work,
they will simply hire someone else. They will go somewhere where the real effects on individuals
and individual suffering are unknown; where the populace is as of yet perhaps 'less enlightened' --
they will move their factories to other countries. And they will naturally try to reduce the level
of awareness and consciousness in your own country through propaganda in order to make it possible
for their 'business' to continue to function there. This propaganda is not merely in the form of
specious and misleading political slogans, but in the form of a weak culture, which manages to
present itself at best as 'complex' only by ignoring and dancing around the fundamental processes
which produce society.

>> Property is necessary to a modern society and to
>> take it away would doom humanity into luddite pre->> modernism.
Again you're attempting to confuse the issue by means of your duplicitous language of 'liberal
democracy'. Resources are necessary to a modern society; the 'right' of 'all' to, apparently,
'share' them vastly unequally, with some controlling near all of them, and some none, is not.

There's nothing modern about capitalism: it's still about a small group of people controlling the
well-being and livelihood of the rest of society. This has been the case since feudalism, and since
ancient times. The majority of humanity is already doomed to a lifetime of exploitation by those
who control them, so that would be no change. Finally, there's no point in again deliberately
attempting to confuse the issue with vague generalizations ('luddite premodernism'). Indeed,
Guevara never suggested 'taking away property' -- if you'd actually read his entire post, you'd see
that clearly. That is, personal property could still exist, but everyone would be allowed the same
amount of currency or the equivalent to purchase it; the only people affected by the change would be those who currently receive more than the average per capita income. Perhaps you're one of these; that would explain your deliberate non-sequiturs and feigned 'misunderstanding', and heedless, irrational, uninformed, and entirely irrelevant animosity to his proposals -- or rather, to what you seek to portray them as.

>> If everyone was guaranteed property, than the
>> system would collapse. You would not have to work
>> because you will always have a guaranteed
>> property. If you do work, you have no motivation to
>> excel because you don't get any more or any less
>> regardless of the quality of your work.
If you truly liked your work, you would be willing to excel no matter what. It is only under
capitalism, where the majority of people are virtually slaves, and hate their jobs -- after all, why
does even the average westerner try to change jobs perhaps 8 times in a lifetime? -- that jobs are
decided not based on the decision of the individual, but on what they can afford: on their class and
race. That is where I agree with you that a truly free and equal system of education, which does
not try to delimit and choose, whether by withholding knowledge or the resources to attain it from
some, or by seeking to brainwash them into choosing jobs they hate, or deliberately driving them off
from those they are interested in and could for that reason excel at -- is necessary.

Second, many look forward to the day that 'the system' collapses, since it is precisely what
oppresses them. 'The system' works to protect the interests of those in power, and to a lesser
degree -- depending directly on income and degree of unctiousness -- those who are willing to
support their right to rule. Once -- ages ago -- it was called 'divine right'. Now with that out
of way, a different excuse and rationalisation is needed, but the best capitalists can do is either
the brutal, uninterrogated darwinist dogma, or the vastly more insightful justification of 'that's
just the way it is'.

Third, you claimed that no one would work if they were guaranteed property. So I suppose that would
be identical to how those in power in this country -- that is, the few who control it -- are
absolutely absymal at their jobs, and have in most cases no wish of equalizing the playing field for
anyone, let alone providing for the survival of all, let alone providing for the equality and
happiness of all as their constitution and hypocritical gestures toward it propose. The people in
the US who do the least work -- and specifically the least work which benefits all of humanity --
also make the most money.

Finally, as to equal opportunity based on skill, that assumes that everyone has the same ability,
and is moreover, trained to the same level. It's obvious in this scenario that the young get
cheated merely because they have had less time to be trained than the old -- those in power --
though they may well work as hard or harder than them. If people don't have the same ability, then
they obviously can't work at equal rates, and this is irregardless of their intentions. People
should not be punished because they are born different. Just because, for instance, someone is born
with a birth defect limiting their intellect, doesn't imply that it is at all right or justifiable
or excuseable to simply let them die off or at best live miserably in poverty merely because they
can't work as hard.

>> No, they [states] exist to protect the property of
>> ALL, and the lives of all as well.
I suppose you must think that if you keep parroting the
hypothetical claims of idealogues and spin doctors for the ruling parties, everyone will simply
agree with you out of habit. I regret to inform you that IDEALLY, states may CLAIM -- when they're
not slaughtering or enslaving people indiscriminately -- or worse, discriminately -- to exist to
protect the property and lives of all, but in fact they do not. Capitalist governments will 'help
the people have a better life' only provided that it does not interfere with corporate domination of
society, and will do so only because their system would crumble otherwise, making them lose their
monopoly over society's wealth and resources.

>> it appears that the most fundamental social
>> structure is the family
Not everyone wants to belong to a family, and like many other forms of social organization it has
historically acted as a form of oppression, particularly for women and children.

>> >> The state will take your tiny peices of property to
>> >> give to someone who already has lots of
>> >> property.
>> In the US, not without compensation.
>> I forget the Marshall case which put that in stone... >> but it is there.
The corporation will take your tiny pieces of property -- IN THE US, no less -- and the government
will both defend it for doing so, and take more of your property to give to the corporation for your
attempting to defend yourself -- this is precisely what, for instance, laws designed to punish
so-called 'frivolous lawsuits' are for -- to protect the interests of those in power, and
unconstitutionally prevent wrongs done to the people from being redressed, through both monetary
punishment after the fact, and the calculated and deliberate threat of such punishment beforehand,
to deter even those who have legitimate grievances from bringing them forth.
Finally, the Marshall case is all very well, but again this is law, rather than police/military/corporate practice. There are ways around the law, and in many cases the dollar speaks far louder than it. It exists to give the population the assurance that everything is all
right, regardless of what they have seen and heard and read, and discovered.

If you truly want to see the purpose of the state, you have only to look at its origins -- police were originally the bullymen of the nobles; following that, as the industrial era unfolded, the hooligans of the robber barons, who most deliberately sought to drive people out of areas to make way for their railroads or other businesses requiring certain lands, and certain resources. None of this is to say that land is the only 'property' which is stolen by capitalism from individuals.

>> >> if we destroy the states the corporations will be >> >> allowed to run rampant (there will be nothing
>> >> with which to control them)
>> Well that is true... the corporations would love a
>> stateless society, they'd merge together and
>> destroy any former controls on them. It'd be chaos.
We could destroy the corporations, or at least seriously weaken and divide them, first.

>> I mean, they enjoy the fact that stability allows them >> to have a stable currency, et. all... but they'll adapt, >> and they won't go down. They'll create their own
>> form of communes.
You'd have to kick their leaders out of the country, as in other revolutions. So long as they remained, they would provide resistance. You have to remember that without their military, goverment and corporate structures, and various propaganda machines, the ruling class is useless.

There's nothing invincible or particularly special about them, whatever they'd like you to believe; they simply happen to have cowed everyone else into agreeing to subordination.

>> look at the multinationals now, they need no state
Exactly. The multinationals control states, and the states are comparatively powerless.

>> How come the super rich guys like Perot never get >> elected?
Begging to differ, Bush's family got rich from oil. His election following his father's, even apart
from its illegality given what happened in Florida, only illustrates the elitist, feudal character
of the ruling class that many already understood or suspected to exist. Perot only wasn't elected,
I suspect, because he divided what would otherwise have been republican votes among himself and
another candidate, who had the structural apparatus of the republican party to rely on.

>> The corporations will exists without the state.
>> Business has existed long before states were
>> created.
Actually the state gave birth to the modern corporation through laws which sought to make actions by
business which would otherwise be rightly seen as outrageous, palatable to population.

>> Corporations control more than the government.
>> They control the clothes you wear, the music you
>> listen to, the games you play, the cars you drive,
>> etc, etc, etc. Our entire bankrupt culture is controlled >> by less than a thousand CEO's.
I agree entirely.

>> No society is devoid of poor people, or even has less >> poor people than rich people - no moral, non-
>> coercive society, that is.
You believe it's 'right' for people to be poor. Why not just quit this discussion now?

>> You don't believe that everyone has a positive right >> to own property, but you believe there is a negative >> right not to be poor. This is also known as
>> entitlement. Unfortunately for you, proper
>> entitlement is not based on egalitarianism. Proper
>> entitlement is more along the lines of this is mine.
So, in other words, after your various devious misdirections and substitutions, your claim is that
protecting all people from being poor is saying 'this is mine'. But actually that would be what you
and other capitalists do in the beginning when they claim to own certain land and resources, and
later when they leech money from workers for things they never made themselves and merely
'supervise'.

'Proper entitlement', according to your definition. I didn't see anyone agree they thought 'entitlement' was a good idea, much less agree to your darwinist definition of it as 'this is mine' -- 'I take what I want'.

>> Egalitarianism is immoral, and can be used to justify >> anything.
I see, so it's wrong for people to be equal, but 'right' for them to be unequal. Which is probably what your ancestors claimed when they enslaved people.

>> Egalitarianism is immoral, and can be used to justify >> anything.
In your form of 'logic', anything can be used to justify anything, so that isn't saying much: above, for instance, you sought to identify equal resources for all as darwinist.
As to egalitarianism being immoral, your elitism already allows the rich to steal from whoever they want, and sanctions it by law. The ruling class can moreover throw anyone else in jail whenever they like.

>> Don't like a rich man? Fine, rob him. He doesn't want >> to give up his wealth? OK, apply more force, through >> him in prison.
In a truly egalitarian society, there would be no rich men; there would also be no poor men; everyone would be equivalent, so there would be no incentive to rob. Obviously a truly just system of law could then prevent some from stealing from others to accumulate a disproportionate amount of wealth for themselves, rather than encouraging that, as in the system you so insightfully support: capitalism (survival of the thievingest).

>> Untrue - but the US population would never elect
>> socialists.
Not if you and those like you continue to brainwash them, no doubt.

>> If you answer no, you agree in principle with slavery.
You agree with slavery, as you stated previously that it is morally correct -- oh yes, I mean 'proper', as you'd put it -- for some be poor. What do you think unnecessary poverty is, if not slavery? This country contains enough wealth that it could easily arrange for no one to be poor; for no one to be forced to have jobs they hate with moreover little compensation; for no one to be
forced in those jobs to serve those who like you would obviously rather see them die off; for no one
to die of disease because of your IMMORAL health care system; for no one to lack a free and equal
education; for no one to starve; but the ruling class simply doesn't care.

>> I'd wager the average human would be upset if
>> someone hit him on the head and took his hammer, >> hmm?
I'd wager that would explain your cantankerous nature, hmm?

>> Do you own or have a valid claim on yourself?
>> If you answer yes..
>> If you answer no, you agree in principle with slavery.
Are you by some chance a lying, cheating lawyer in your spare time?
You don't have to 'own yourself' in order to oppose slavery. I've never heard any abolitionist use that phrase, and understandably so, since the opposite of slavery would be freedom, rather than 'owning' something else. Your claim assumes that if you don't 'own yourself', someone else would.

That's understandable, since in your view of the world, people apparently exist to be exploited ('owned'), and would be unless they can claim to 'own themselves' -- and afterwards, others as well, of course. Your claim assumes a negativist human nature, whereas the positivist principle of freedom assumes people don't inherently try to control others, and therefore don't have to constantly assert their prior rights to themselves.
The will to control others is rather a distortion of true human nature, a distortion moreover driven by the seeming need to 'compete', an ideology manufactured and sold by your favorite -- capitalism.

>> The hilarious part is communism and socialism both >> depend on an intrinsic selflessness of people. Which >> is only true for maybe 90% of the population. The >> problem is that the 10% will destroy those
>> systems because there is no check on them.
There is already no check on them. 10% of the people already control 90% of the wealth, and with that, all else. The system currently only provides a check on the other 90%, save in the occassional case like Enron, where the blatant nature of the crimes of the 10% could not be readily concealed, (try as they would).

>> Those people resent being forced to work because >> there are no goods they receive.
Somewhat like how the lower 90% percent of people in this system resent being forced to work because
with the income they're provided, they also receive no goods.

>> For example, some animals regard territory as their >> property and defend it against intruders. Capitalist >> system simply formalized the right of property.
No, that came much earlier with feudalism and prior forms of government, which claimed certain territory nonsensically 'belonged' 'by right' to certain individuals, based, apparently, simply on their saying so. Just because a set of animals are stupid, let's all be just like them and everything will be fine.

>> And stop all technological progress and innovation >> dead in its tracks
Yeah, and I guess Sputnik was the name of someone's toy bicycle.

>> Why should owning food be a crime?
I suppose you must be referring to how the food surplus in the world could ensure that everyone
would be properly fed -- were it not for some people who are HOARDING it -- did you understand that
time? -- not OWNING but HOARDING it all to themselves. But then I forgot that you like seeing
people starve.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oh, and che... Hegel?

What's wrong with Hegel?

[DinoDoc]

Ban Trotsky.

[Trotsky]

>> Proof? This sounds very fishy to me... or loaded
>> questions
That would be nothing next to the vast number of polls carried out by organizations funded by those
with money to present 'the American people' as agreeing with their every call.

>> Actually, for most of Hitler's rise to power, most
>> capitalists distrusted him, as he led a party which
>> was socialist in it's name at least.
And fascist in its reality. I don't think many people were fooled about its true nature. It would be similar to how
the US calls itself a 'democracy' when it can't even elect a President which, according to its laws, its people chose.

>> When a person breaks his back all day in, day in and
>> day out, to work a piece of land and raise a crop he
>> or she insists that that piece of land is his.
Where today, on the other hand, there are huge farms run as businesses, akin to plantations; businesses whose owners never lift a hand themselves. A tiny proportion of people in the US farm, much less farm their own land. Regardless, just because stable agriculture is invented doesn't imply that the same people have to work the same fields all the time, year after year. The reward for the labor comes from compensation for the fruit of it. That doesn't imply the additional compensation of owning the land, though there's nothing to say you can't use the land if you need a place to live.
In addition to not justifying territorial property ownership for the rest of the population, you
also imply that as farmers they have special rights because they're working, apparently while no one
else is. In a true communist society, everyone would work, so this would be irrelevant. Your argument also doesn't explain why some should own estates with thousands of acres, while others should own nothing. Do they really work those thousands of acres themselves, that is when they're not too busy playing golf or expanding their mansions or invading other countries to further exploit foreign economies?

>> No, an open society would allow the people to see >> the relative wealth and advantages of the West
Right. The advantages that only 10% of the population ever truly 'see', even in the west. Good call.

>> You are arguing that the Wage Labor System is
>> disgused slavery, due to the fact that the people
>> need to work in order to live
No, I argue it is disguised slavery because they are forced to work for unequal compensation in
comparison to those who control 90 percent of the wealth of the country and do no work themselves.

>> Democracy is the best form of government, since
>> bad rulers wont sit as long on the thone of power as >> under more totalitarian systems like Fascism and
>> Communism.
And then more bad leaders will be elected, in a capitalist system at any rate. You can still have
elections, hence democracy, in a communist country. Similar to as in capitalism, however, these would probably be internal elections, with the decision between two or more forms of communism, as in the US the decision is between two forms of capitalism.

[Zoid]

Good points, Lev Davidovitj Welcome aboard!

For easier reading I suggest you use the 'Quote' function. Looks a whole lot better