About Socialism

A democracy, benevolent dictatorship, or some other form of “state”?

I’m not sure why source of income would increase or decrease economic choices. I never lacked economic choice and I was born with nothing. Conversely, I know people given whatever monetary support they wanted and today have nothing.

At what age does this happen? If it’s wasted the poor schmuck lives out of a dumpster? Or bucks up and does it on their own?

 

With subjective standards of living between groups agreed upon within groups?

 

Thanks for makin' $#!+ up again.

Your mistake is thinking First Worlders are all privileged, or have freedom and opportunity. We only have freedom or opportunity if we pay landowners for permission to access it. Read "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich, and get a clue.

It's the hard runners who are taking care of the rich, greedy, privileged parasites riding up at their leisure on the escalator the treadmill powers.

I hate evil liars who pretend having one's right to liberty removed and given to the privileged is somehow an advantage.

 

No, it's only as good as the least honest member of the collective wants it to be.

 

Try again.

 

There is no 'between groups'. Every collective operates independently.

 

1) Gosh, walking the thin line there in terms of forum rules!

2) First Worlders have immense safety, wealth, and opportunity. Our 'poor' are richer than practically everyone on earth. Not being able to pay your big city rent or buy the latest phone is NOT poverty. Meantime, if you don't like not being a land owner, become a land owner.

3) No, the hard runners take care of a huge number of lazy sods. That's what happens when your version of 'socialism' is simply outrageous indulgence funded by capitalism. A bonafide commie would demand that everyone works, no exceptions.

4) If you're calling me an 'evil liar', I suggest you might want to retract, or let the mods know you didn't mean it.

 

You've gone off on one. The payment is purely to allow genuine economic choice. We know, for example, that desired self employment rates significantly exceeds actual rates. It's not for any socialist planner to determine how the resource is used.

For social rate of return, you'd refer to the investment banks.

 

It's an act of bureaucracy no different to standard welfare policies (although, as it's not means tested, it is less costly).

There is reduced discretionary policy in market socialism. Government isn't the key economic agent, as it is in capitalism. Its role is focused much more on protection of property rights.

Your tabloidism isn't interesting. You need to look at the empirical evidence objectively. Take the US, all features showing choice is largely illusionary: High poverty is coupled with low social mobility (and underclass problems); productivity-pay gap; low self employment rates.

What amuses me about your reaction is your dismissing the Austrian perspective and its focus on individualism. We would still expect welfare payments (eg frictional unemployment), but it's simply less important. There is no need, for example, to have a reserve army to discipline the workforce.

 

Understood. Is this arrangement in an overall stateless society? What about infrastructure, national defense, etc. ?

 

Can you be specific about what property rights are protected?

I’m not looking to entertain you. I’m looking for specific answers to questions. Can you provide them or not? I’ve been over all the productivity, self employment, poverty with you before.

Can you answer my specific questions or not? All I want is to know at what age. Show me you are serious about this.

 

Value of one's labour.

I didn't just answer, I informed you how to improve your analysis. I demonstrated how objective analysis can be used to show the illusion of economic choice. If we had choice, we would see much more volatility in the income distribution. If we had choice, there can't be widening in the pay productivity gap. If we had choice, desired and actual self employment rates would coincide.

You miss the point. You're referring to bureaucratic details to try and reject individualism. When to pay? Given the choice kicks in with the higher education choice at 18, that gives a tad of a clue! And if a firm fails, or they choose to use it to avoid work? Of course there is a means tested safety net. Obvious stuff, so why refer to it? Perhaps to sneer at individual choice?

 

Many of these countries in your area are not really socialist, have a more regressive tax system than the US, the lower and middle income earners pay much higher taxes than we do. One thing they do have is usually a more homogeneous population and move in one direction easier. In your case, accepting higher taxes for more free stuff (I know, kinda ass backwards).

 

Ah yes. I can see how bureaucrats and fellow “citizens” spending my labor on hookers and blow is protecting my labor.

If in reality nobody I know or ever heard of has been denied economic choice why would I be interested in your analysis? Could you provide some real world data on increases in the metrics you mention resulting from giving everyone enough money to by a Ph. D.? Not theory, actual measurable data.

Why would I sneer at individual choice? I’m a big fan.

Do you have any statistics on what happens when you give 18 year olds that money and that choice? These aren’t bureaucratic details to me. After all, I’m just trying to protect my property rights. It’s the meat and bone of the issue. Surely with all your analysis you can answer these simple questions.

Why can’t details be discussed? It seems like someone as passionate about the issue as yourself would welcome the opportunity to do so. Socialism is an interesting subject but it’s impossible to get excited about a system that seems to breed unhappiness and antagonism.

Why would a means tested safety net be obvious? It isn’t to many claiming to be socialists. Why would it be obvious to me? If you don’t want to discuss realities of your ideas, just say so. But I would be interested in more details than just “means tested safety net”.

 

No, it means they are telling you how much you are going to be forced to pay for it. It's NOT competitive.

 

A nonsense response. First, you don't believe in ensuring people receive the value of their labour. Second, the redistribution is about the reality of tacit knowledge (unlike your support for rent seeking)

Standard nonsense from you. I'm not interested in tabloidism. I've also referred directly to the empirical evidence. Can you dispute the interaction of high poverty and low social mobility? Can you dispute the pay-productivity gap? Can you dispute the low self-employment rates?

An example of how your tabloidism doesn't translate into economic reality. You've done nothing but sneer at the Austrian approach to knowledge after all.

Look at any investment in higher education. Bit obvious really.

You're going for irrelevant details for one purpose: try and attack individual choice. You're still doing it.

You're asking for repetition. I've already referred to the nature of allocation problems such as frictional unemployment. There's just no content in your comments.

 

You're not seeing my post point that modern socialist systems--those that really do work right--are a blend of socialism & capitalism. If that blend included having capitalism paying the costs of social programs, then so be it. If the system works & works well in ways that benefit whole societies, then it doesn't matter whether you call it "capitalist" or "socialist" or whatever. If it works, it's a good thing.

 

There's no blend. Capitalism is defined as an economic system in which "surplus value is extracted in the production process by using wage labour and utilized in the circulation process to sustain capital accumulation". Socialism ends it.

 

I'm not suggesting getting rid of capitalism. I'm suggesting incorporating more socialist ideas in a blend with capitalism to soften the disparity of wealth here in the U.S. It's true that even the poorest in the U.S. enjoy a quality of life far above the poor in 2nd & 3rd world nations, but it's equally true that in order to sustain that quality of life, most Americans have to work decades without a raise, are gradually losing work benefits available for decades in the past, lose healthcare for themselves & their children whenever they change jobs or lose their job, and often are forced to work several part time jobs just to survive. That's not a good record for American capitalism to brag about. We need an economy where anyone can work one full time job--with benefits--and make a descent living. Adding a few socialist programs in with our capitalism can help us achieve that.

 

Social democracy isn't socialism. It is merely use of interventionism to stabilise inequalities.

 

Should we be going Socialist over Capitalist because our government does such a great job investing our money that they need even more to regulate even more of our lives in the pretense of giving us more. Sorry, I just don't trust the government with more money as I don't believe we will get that much back out of it than what we pay form.

 

It's intended use would be to reduce welfare dependence, no? Or are you suggesting that it would be beer money?

 

It's a 'lifestyle option' within a larger framework. It would be unlikely to work in groups larger than 100 (and even that would be a stretch). It's practiced in all forms of society and govt bar Totalitarian. Totalitarianism doesn't allow for the property and market freedoms needed for voluntary collectivism.

 

No, its intended purpose is to offer genuine economic choice. I can invest in education (higher education/vocational etc); I can invest in SME; I can decide not to work at all. Individual choice.

 

No they wouldn't (my bold). Nothing is easy or magical, and every person who works their behind off to achieve their choice, is evidence of that.