The problem of Capitalism

<yawn> Do you think it would be responsive for slave owners to tell abolitionists, "If you disapprove of owning slaves, don't own any. BE THE CHANGE."

How on earth do you incorrectly imagine my owning or not owning land would have any effect on the injustice of OTHERS owning land?

 

You are again disingenuously substituting "property" for "land" and falsely claiming that administration in trust is ownership.

But more to the point, you are not willing to use English words accurately and honestly. If public administration of possession and use of land is communism, all nations have always been communist by definition. You are just trying to remove the meanings of words that are used to identify facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil.

 

C (the community) is providing the advantageous opportunity that A (the landowner) demands B (the land user) pay A for permission to access. You want A to be legally entitled to charge B for what C provides. You like A being legally entitled to steal. You favor stealing over honest production and consensual trade. I'm not sure there is any clearer or simpler way to explain that to you.

 

Because if we all do the right thing, there is no need to resort to totalitarianism. In this case, I'm talking about YOUR idea of the right thing ... the sharing land and its benefits. Case in point - if all potential slave owners had refused to own slaves, then slavery would not have been a problem. Obviously.

Your demands are akin to participants in the slave trade complaining about the slave trade. If we are not prepared to change, then any demand for change is simply guilt.

 

How is he different from the government or state that you claim owns the land if it administers possession and use thereof?

Nope. Bushels of wheat are interchangeable. So are 2x4s of a given quality. Land parcels are not. More to the point, more wheat and 2x4s can be produced. No more land can be produced. That's why land is a canonical example of monopoly.

You want individuals to be able to own land so that they can legally steal from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land. I don't want any state or individual or organization to own any land, any more than I would want them to own the atmosphere, the sun, the alphabet, etc., because that inherently erases everyone's right to liberty.

You know you are. No one can be that relentlessly disingenuous without being consciously aware of what they are deliberately doing.

 

That's just more absurd and disingenuous garbage from you because YOU KNOW we will not all do the right thing, and YOU ALSO KNOW that stopping those who want to do wrong things does not imply resorting to totalitarianism.

And irrelevantly.

Garbage. However, Jefferson was a slave owner who complained about the slave trade, and he was far from the only one.

Garbage. I don't use or deal in illegal drugs, but I want government to legalize them. That has nothing to do with any imagined guilt. I just understand why society would be better for it.

 

Or very, very angry and rebellious (as in Chile and Lebanon), except where the oppression is so profound as to create a default inertia in the population, as in the occupied West Bank, or those experiencing entrenched poverty in the 1st world who are thrown enough 'welfare' scraps to keep them quiet.

Once again, your view that people are equally free to make rational choices (the erroneous classical liberal view) leads to erroneous conceptions about human motivation, the end result of which is dystopia.

Some do, some don't. But the fact remains: if "the best form of welfare is a job", then society must ensure the jobs are there.

Excellent statement. Let's see how you continue....

Yes.....but some of those differences are due to mere prejudice and ignorance......obviously, undisputedly.

Now you have completely, disastrously, gone off the rails again, as expected from your erroneous classical liberal view that people are equally free to make rational choices.

Resulting in a disaster for community cohesion and democratic functionality, as we are witnessing now more and more in the democracies.

According to you, public schools should not dare approach the topic of truth....while at the same time private schools should be free to teach whatever flat-earther nonsense they like.
Dystopia is guaranteed.

Which point? This one?

……. there is nothing sadder than a little private sector shopkeeper, trying to make a living, sitting behind the counter all day long, and no-one comes in...

or the reality of neoliberal macroeconomics that is ravaging the world, despite a sufficiency of resources to eradicate poverty and war?

or the need for universal education capable of overcoming prejudice, rather than simply reinforcing it?

 

Nope. I don't favor stealing. I don't think any person should forcibly take what another person owns.

Unlike others here on this board.

 

I don't agree that the state should monopolize land ownership. I would prefer it to be distributed among millions of different owners.

 

So you're saying that the state can't make rational choices?

 

Let's see...... you replied to my statement:

".. (the) view that people (ie individuals) are equally free to make rational choices (the erroneous classical liberal view), leads to erroneous conceptions about human motivation,"

with your above question, demonstrating the very point, I suppose.

The state exists to develop and administer law, on behalf of the 'common welfare'.

Have another try....

 

So you're saying that this set of people are free to make rational choices?

 

I'm listening to some great music, so I'm feeling generous..

Individual voters are tiny pieces of the 'state'; some of these voters are elected to government office.

While indeed "the law may (at times) be an ass" (as the saying goes), law is the method by which a community avoids anarchy amongst its naturally self-interested individuals - and thereby promotes the 'common welfare', or hopefully a well-ordered state.

But classical liberalism has this erroneous conception that individuals are equally free to make rational choices, hence the false statements and misunderstandings evident on this thread.

The truth is each one of us is in conflict with our own instincts, by the mere fact of possessing self-aware consciousness that urges us to seek knowledge beyond that ordained by instinct.

That inner conflict, which is described as the human condition, means the potential for conflict with all other individuals is also very real, because the unconscious anxiety-causing search for knowledge manifests itself in an infinite variety of ways depending on environmental and social - nature v. nurture - factors.

Which explains Blaise Pascal's famous observation:

"What a chimera then is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth, sewer of uncertainty and error, the glory and scum of the universe".

oh dear....qui tollis peccata mundi, misere nobis...

 

So this classical liberal thing you don't like. The thing where people are free to make rational choices. So does this apply to all people?

 

Comparing owning a human to owning land is retarded.

 

People can, and have, and still do, own both. Nothing retarded about said comparison.

 

Land and people are in no way comparable. If you can’t figure out why you have no business in an adult discussion.

 

The problem with using absolutist language such as "in no way," it only takes one example to invalidate your argument.

Land and people... are both resources. That is one comparison.

 

An invalid comparison, which is why comparing the two is retarded. In no way is land and a humanbeing comparable.

 

You're not saying anything other than your personal opinion, and I have no interests in debating your personal opinion. People have (and do) have made these comparisons, as I have made the comparisons moments ago.

It's up to you to explain (coherently) why these comparisons are invalid; regurgitating the phrase "retarded" isn't doing a good job convincing competent-thinking individuals..

 

We are neither Chile or Lebanon, we are Western democracies. And oppression does NOT cause inertia - if it did, NE Asians would not be the phenomenally motivated workers and achievers that they are today. You simultaneously condemn humanity (attributing all manner of evil) AND pretend that we're all perfect (everyone wants to work).

As for 'welfare scraps', as long as new migrants can torque it into a better future, anyone can. Some migrants have had almost impossible obstacles to overcome compared to your average lazy fat American, so don't bother suggesting that historical trauma is a reasonable excuse.

See above. I have never once suggested that we're all equal in terms of personal obstacles. I've just pointed out that many migrants arriving in the West in the past 40 or so years have known immense obstacles to success, and still managed to overcome them. And then there are citizens with nothing more in their way than a couple of dysfunctional parents, who still can't get out of bed in the morning. As for rational choices .. if we haven't been raised in a cage inside a cave, we all know the equations. Unless you're saying poor people in America are so deeply stupid that they don't know spending their money on luxuries (tattoos, hairstylists, big city rents, fast food, and cars) will keep them poor. Is that what you're saying?

 

1) Again, I never once suggested that we're all equal. It's you who is doing that in suggesting everyone will magically want to work when jobs (they didn't ask for and don't care for) are provided. I'm saying we're free to make choices period - the quality of those choices is on each of us, not Govt. So explain how you will force people to make the choices you want them to make? After all, they won't take the jobs you're offering, and won't stop wanting to own land, and won't stop voting in democracies, etc etc. What's your plan to compel equality?

2) Loss of community cohesion comes as a result of Progressive policies. And yes, it's a disaster. It has lead directly to widespread abdication from and rejection of personal responsibility, interpersonal responsibility, community responsibilities, family stability, and 'collectivist' action. Adding multi-culturalism to that mix is an even greater disaster ... especially for people like you - who want everyone to think alike.

3) Public schools are answerable to the tax payers who fund them, and the families who utilise them. They are publicly funded by a public and parents made up of a wide range of moral positions, politics, and cultures. To introduce anything but pure academics is a breach of that trust arrangement, in service of an ideology. That's what private schools are for, ideologies. Public schools have NO BUSINESS in any of that. If you still don't understand, consider how you'd feel as a tax paying parent if your local public schools started teaching children that Jesus lives, and to ignore science. You'd be happy about that? Or how about if they started teaching kids that all Leftist politics is evil?

 

Are you seriously saying that it would be right for another person to own you like they own an acre of land?

 

The e3

The classical liberal proposition is that all people are equally free to make rational choices.

Its nonsense, and explains crank's absurd views eg,

"To introduce anything but pure academics (by which crank means education exclusive of, eg, a comparative study of systems of philosophy, religion, economics, and governance), and is a breach of that trust arrangement, in service of an ideology.

And so he unconsciously, or rather, uncomprehendingly, forms exactly the opposite (erroneous) conclusion.

As no doubt will you.

"Give me the child until he is 7, and I will show you the man": Aristotle.

 

So which persons can govern us, if no person can make rational choices?