Forum Post: "Why Marxism?" An Evening at FEE with C. Bradley Thompson
Posted 11 years ago on Oct. 21, 2012, 9:39 p.m. EST by darrenlobo
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A great video on how evil Marxism is.
“Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!” --Che Guevara
I do so love when crackpot libertarians talk shit about Marxism. It's a hoot.
What exactly did the us libertarians get wrong?
Almost every damn thing. You see, it all looks pretty on paper.
That's not very exact. Please explain how our non aggression principle is so bad:
The non-aggression principle (also called the non-aggression axiom, the anti-coercion principle, the zero aggression principle, the non-initiation of force, ZAP, or NAP) is a moral stance which asserts that aggression is inherently illegitimate. Aggression, for the purposes of the NAP, is defined as the initiation or threatening of violence against a person or legitimately owned property of another. Specifically, any unsolicited actions of others that physically affect an individual’s property or person (which may also be considered that person's property), no matter if the result of those actions is damaging, beneficial, or neutral to the owner, are considered violent or aggressive when they are against the owner’s free will and interfere with his right to self-determination or the principle of self-ownership. Supporters of NAP often appeal to it in order to explain the immorality of theft, vandalism, assault, and fraud. In contrast to pacifism, the non-aggression principle does not preclude violence used in self-defense or defense of others.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle
There are a number of flaws with this principle, at least there is if you use it to justify capitalism.
NAP says you can't use force to acquire property.
This is obviously a problem if you want capitalism since capitalism is based entirely on the privatization of the planet and its resources which means you are claiming control over a portion of the planet for your own private benefit to the exclusion of everyone else and using whatever FORCE is necessary to maintain your private, exclusive control.
How do you take private ownership of any part of the planet without using force against everyone else who also wants to benefit from that part of the planet? You can't.
Capitalism, and its privatization of the planet, is based on aggression. So capitalism violates NAP.
The planet and its rich resources rightfully belong to everyone EQUALLY. So NAP naturally leads to socialism, not capitalism.
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Capitalists also refer to NAP to justify the elimination of taxes and other public obligations because they never signed any social contract where they agreed to any of those obligations.
But let's do a thought experiment. You buy a house in a neighborhood that has a Homeowners Association that requires members to pay monthly dues and follow certain rules. You agree to these rules when you buy the house.
You have a kid, the kid gets older, you die and you leave your house to your kid. Does the kid have to follow these rules even though he didn't sign up for them? Of course. If he doesn't want to follow those rules, he would have to leave the community.
Now let's extend this homeowners association across the entire country, call the monthly dues a tax and call the homeowner rules a regulation and there is no difference between a country which capitalists use NAP to say is not legitimate and a homeowners association which capitalists use NAP to say is legitimate.
If you are born into a country that has taxes and regulations, you have the choice of staying in the country and abiding by those rules or leaving, just like if you were born into a homeowners association.
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There are other problems in using NAP to justify capitalism but this comment is already getting too long!
There is the Lockean idea that you acquire the moral right to property by mixing labor with natural resources. At that point you can then claim it as yours.
No one ever said that people should just walk around claiming property. This is what socialists are doing by using "NAP to justify the equal ownership of the planet and its resources."
Funny that you bring up HOAs since where I live we have one. The only way you can make that analogy work is if you're going to claim that the govt owns all property. If they don't, & I don't believe they do, then one has a right to ignore the govt. Please consider Spencer's arguments on the subject:
As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state — to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support.
It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one; and whilst passive he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally self-evident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation, without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man's property against his will is an infringement of his rights. (snip)
http://mises.org/daily/2624
"There is the Lockean idea that you acquire the moral right to property by mixing labor with natural resources. At that point you can then claim it as yours. "
That is how socialism works. That is not how private property in capitalism works!
If Locke were alive today, he would likely be a market socialist, like me. The product of your labor (your income and whatever you buy with it) is privately yours, but the planet you took your resources from is not yours and was given by nature to everyone equally.
To the contrary, the private owner in capitalism can EXCLUDE everyone from mixing their labor with the natural resources that he personally owns.
In capitalism, I can't walk on to a privately owned mine and say I am willing to work this mine so I want part ownership of it. Only in socialism do all workers get equal ownership in the land and resources that they mix their labor with!
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"The only way you can make that analogy work is if you're going to claim that the govt owns all property. If they don't, & I don't believe they do, then one has a right to ignore the govt."
I am not claiming the government owns the country. The people who live in the country own the country just like the people who live in the homeowners association own the homeowners association.
And just like you are free to choose between living by the homeowners association rules or leaving the association, you are free to choose between living by the country's rules or leaving the country.
The analogy holds.
The idea that you can even have market socialism is way off. Markets require private property. Since we agree that a market economy is the one that works you should be able to see the logic of the Lockean view of property.
This straw man of excluding everyone is also way off. It is through private property that people are brought together & resources shared. Business owners need customers & workers so they open their property to the public, they don't exclude people. I've never sen a mall with a wall around it.
Regardless, the market socialism idea was disposed of long ago:
4 The Artificial Market as the Solution of the Problem of Economic Calculation
Some of the younger socialists believe that the socialist community could solve the problem of economic calculation by the creation of an artificial market for the means of production. They admit that it was an error on the part of the older socialists to have sought to realize Socialism through the suspension of the market and the abolition of pricing for goods of higher orders; they hold that it was an error to have seen in the suppression of the market and of the price system the essence of the socialistic ideal. And they contend that if it is not to degenerate into a meaningless chaos in which the whole of our civilization would disappear, the socialist community equally with the capitalistic community, must create a market in which all goods and services may be priced. On the basis of such arrangements, they think, the socialist community will be able to make its calculations as easily as the capitalist entrepreneurs. (snip) http://mises.org/books/socialism/part2_ch6.aspx#_sec4
"The idea that you can even have market socialism is way off"
The idea that you can't is way off.
And this obvious point was made by Oskar Lange when he debunked Mises in the Economic Calculation Debate. Even the very, very, very pro-capitalist economics profession agreed with Lange.
The idea that a company can only figure out how to produce what consumers want to buy when that company is owned privately instead of equally owned by all the company workers defies common sense.
It also defies facts. There are thousands of successful worker-owned cooperatives.
We already have all the components of market socialism successfully working in practice. We already have companies equally owned by its workers in the thousands of successful worker-cooperatives, absentee owners in publicly owned companies, pay based on difficulty and performance, market allocation of goods and services, companies that must remain profitable, and investors who are paid based on financial performance of investments.
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"Markets require private property"
Just so we are clear on terms, whatever you buy with your own money is your own private property. The only thing you cannot do in market socialism is sell your private property for a profit. Just like you can't generate an income from printing your own money, you also cannot generate an income from inflating the price of something and keeping the difference. In socialism, you can only get paid an income by working - by actually contributing labor to production.
Markets have nothing to do with private ownership of the means of production.
A market is simply a system where companies are forced to produce only what consumers are willing to buy. Whether that company is equally owned by its workers or owned by a few who take most of the income the workers produce makes no difference in its ability to produce what consumers are buying.
Workers obviously do not all of a sudden lose the ability to produce what consumers want to buy just because they have become equal owners in the company!
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"This straw man of excluding everyone is also way off"
It is not a straw man!
You said everyone should have a moral right to mix their labor with the planet's resources in order to gain ownership of it. But capitalism prevents that! Capitalism allows a single person to privately own a part of the planet to the exclusion of everyone else.
You cannot walk on to a privately owned mine and demand equal ownership in that mine by merely working there. That is not how capitalism works!
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"Business owners need customers & workers so they open their property to the public, they don't exclude people."
Of course they don't exclude people from working for them or buying what they own. But that has nothing to do with the point we are debating!
The point we are debating is whether aggression was used in acquiring the resources that make up every single product being sold. And the answer is YES, aggression is used.
If you walk on to a privately owned mine and demand equal ownership in that mine in exchange for working the mine, that owner will use AGGRESSION to remove you from their PRIVATELY owned mine!
They do not share ownership of that mine. They claim exclusive ownership of it and will use whatever force is necessary to maintain their exclusive ownership.
Like I asked in my original comment, how do you take private ownership of any part of the planet without using force against everyone else who also wants to benefit from that part of the planet? You can't.
Capitalism is based on aggression because it allows privatization. Privatization means you are claiming control over a portion of the planet for your own private benefit to the exclusion of everyone else and using whatever force is necessary to maintain your control.
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"Some of the younger socialists believe that the socialist community could solve the problem of economic calculation by the creation of an artificial market for the means of production. They admit that it was an error on the part of the older socialists to have sought to realize Socialism through the suspension of the market and the abolition of pricing for goods of higher orders; they hold that it was an error to have seen in the suppression of the market and of the price system the essence of the socialistic ideal."
Your article is entirely untrue! Those claims are flat lies (which is not surprising coming from a capitalist propaganda group that is not taken seriously from the economics community).
First, a socialist market is a real market with producers really producing what consumers really want.
Second, socialists have not come to the realization that a socialist market cannot work. They don't admit that older socialists were wrong! That article is comical.
"I've never seen a mall with a wall around it." - LOL !! Sorry mate, I could really go to town on this thread but I have refrained thus far tho' I have to ask you to rethink that point ! Malls only exist inside 'walls' and there is a deeper symbolic point right there that I will leave for you and others to reflect upon for now. So. from America's favourite 'Libertarian Socialist', inter alia - I append :
"Chomsky On Adam Smith - 'What we would call capitalism he despised'" : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22546.htm ,
"Why Socialism ?", by Albert Einstein : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25996.htm ,
http://www.internationalgramscisociety.org/ ,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism &
http://www.marxists.org/ .
Finally though you are obviously enamoured of von Mises, you have heard of Carl Menger, right ?!
e tenebris, lux ...
When was the last time that a libertarian argued for zero pollution?
Don't believe in a social contract? Didja drive on a road? Didja benefit at all ever from that which has been derived from the social contract? You signed on there.
Shall I go on? Again, it is pretty on paper. Not so much when applied.
I signed nothing. The social contract idea is as invalid as a sign over a man's door stating that any woman who enters has consented to sex just by entering. No one has the right to force anything on anyone.
When it comes to the roads you can't force a monopoly on us & then criticize us for using it. We'd be happy to pay for private roads. Shall I go on?
There are real libertarian solutions to the pollution problem you just refuse to see them (the protection of property):
The Libertarian Manifesto on Pollution
(snip) ...when we peel away the confusions and the unsound philosophy of the modern ecologists, we find an important bedrock case against the existing system; but the case turns out to be not against capitalism, private property, growth, or technology per se. It is a case against the failure of government to allow and to defend the rights of private property against invasion. If property rights were to be defended fully, against private and governmental invasion alike, we would find here, as in other areas of our economy and society, that private enterprise and modern technology would come to mankind not as a curse but as its salvation. (snip)
http://mises.org/daily/5978/The-Libertarian-Manifesto-on-Pollution
You didn't answer the question about NAP which just goes to show that socialism is a dictatorial system based on force which has caused death, poverty, & misery where ever it's been tried. So tell me, GirlFriday, do you think it is moral to initiate the use of force on peaceful people?
Oh, Mr. Lobo, when I take over the universe I am going to morally beat the hell out of your peace loving ass. At the very least, I will kick you in the shins and run like hell.
Oh, so what you are telling me is that you did enjoy the benefits of the social contract but now you can't handle the responsibility. Got it.
When it comes to roads they were originally made by private sector. Which is why nobody had any until the WPA. For the past 30-35 years most has been contracted out...bidding. So, we use our tax dollars. Where you been?
I didn't refuse to see anything. I gave you a libertarian argument. Zero pollution. Is this not a fundamental critism against regulation? But, you then turned around and gave me the answer that I was looking for. You and I both know that zero pollution is not a workable solution. That right there is what we call..........a circle jerk.
Gave you an answer, you just don't like it. It is pretty on paper.......like socialism, capitalism and communism. Lot's of talk about feel good freedom and shit. Mostly just shit.
you go girl!
the world is closed system pollution will have to be recycled at the rate that it is produced
Thank you for threatening me with violence. You make my point for me. You reject non aggression & have no morals.
Hey, no problem. Anytime you need me to threaten you with violence........just let me know. I'm there for you like that.
LOLOL!!!
Yet another grim Bolshevik countenance. I told you so.
Bam! Ya got me!
Not you. darrenlobo. He's pulled the ol' 'self-righteous denunciation/ad hominem attack' from the playbook. He's also put a cherry on top of it by acting wounded. The execution is uninspired, however. I'd rate it a solid C.
OIC.
Well, then.......bam, it wasn't me?
Not so sure I'd give him a C for that one.
I'm a soft grader.
What are private roads? What does that even mean? That you'd hope a business would build a perfectly designed road so we could pay them a monthly fee or a toll for using the roads.... sounds like taxes.
Not only that but it would also be private property.... which means they could limit my freedom to move around the country.
Public is definitely the way to go in regards to roads and travel ways.
& govt can't limit access to "public" property? Maybe you've never heard of people losing their licenses or the no fly list. Regardless, govt roads are just more pork & subsidies for the auto, construction, & logging companies. We're way over invested in them.
Not only that but govt roads & highways are the foundation the housing boom was built on. They created the suburban sprawl.
No we'd be much better of without them.
No roads 2012!
LOL good luck pushing that agenda.
I should have footnoted my last post. What I don't want are govt roads, private ones are fine.
Banks, among other corporations, do it every day.
Ma'am: may I suggest you study the following: the Russian Revolution, Stalin,pol Pot, Mao Ze Dong, anything to do with the Democratic Republic of Congo. And many others. Marxists are even greater killers than Nazis.
it's those pacifist ya got to scard of
May I suggest you study the following: Marxism.
And then refer to the claims Marx makes that says society should be ruled by an unelected gangster, shut down freedom of the press, eliminate transparency, run their government like the mafia, allocate income in a way that gets you political favors and allow the dictator to murder opponents.
We Americans are taught to fear socialism without having the faintest idea about it! If marxism was so 'evil' it wouldn't really have had so many millions of people enthused and interested by it for over a hundred years. You pick a scary quote so as to help keep people scared and ignorant.
The answer is that socialism benefits the few while being imposed by force on the many. It never was popular. See below for a first hand account:
Socialism in Guyana
By Rehana Wolfe
Imagine for a moment what life would be like if you had to queue up at every grocery store just to get basic food items for your family. While you’re standing in line, your palms get sweaty , your heart pounds hard against your chest. Waiting to get to the point of sale seems like an eternity. While in line, your fear intensifies with every step forward to the counter. Your fear is that you would have spent several hours in line only to be turned away at the counter with the dreaded words, 'sorry, come back next week. We just ran out of ….' For many, this is a difficult scenario to comprehend, but for my generation and that of my parents, this was reality during the 70’s and 80’s in Guyana, South America when we lived under the dictatorship of Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, the first President of this small South American country of only 83,000 square miles and a population of under one million people. (snip)
http://theinternationallibertarian.blogspot.com/2009/12/socialism-in-guyana.html
Guyana in the 70's is your example? Seriously? What about most western european countries?
It's just one example of many but since it's not so well known I thought I'd enlighten the OWS crowd. I notice that you don't try to refute my example just dismiss it.
Western Europe isn't that different from the US. They are mixed economies not socialist ones. You do remember the eastern European countries that were socialist? Emphasis on the were as in past tense. I wonder why they dropped the socialism? Perhaps, just maybe, because it didn't work?
You seek to associate a totalitarian tin-pot dictatorship with 'socialism' and that is why I questioned your comment. 'Dismiss' is your word but if the cap fits, etc.! Also I was not suggesting any kind of dictatorship or anti-democratic practices yet you bring Eastern Europe up. Western Europe is very different to the US and many people there call themselves 'socialist'. Also when you say that they actually 'are mixed economies' - you are really making a very big point indeed, so thanks for that.
The world isn't into isms right now. They're so 20th century.
You are gonna get a lot of resistance here.
No doubt