Socialism

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Makes sense, we aren't going anywhere I do not think that we will end up going anywhere either.

Right, I disagree. This is even with regard to the kibbutzim, which have been subsidized, which have had to get rid of some of their original ideals, and which in some cases have been found to have destroyed individuality. I think that socialism almost always stands in the way of individual freedom and in the way of success.

" Bruno Bettelheim learned to his surprise that while it was possible, over time, to inculcate in kibbutz children indifference to private belongings, this exacted a heavy price. Israelis brought up in such a Spartan environment showed exceptional group loyalty and grew up to become excellent soldiers, but they experienced great difficulty making an emotional commitment to any one individual, whether by forming a friendship or falling in love:

Emotion shared with only one other person is a sign of selfishness no less than other private possessions. Nowhere more than in the kibbutz did I realize the degree to which private property, in the deep layers of the mind, relates to private emotion. If one is absent, the other tends to be absent as well.

Kibbutz youths admitted to being inhibited about writing poetry or painting, because such activities were considered "selfish" and brought the opprobrium of the group."

Socialism does not have to stand in the way of individual freedom. If anything, capitalist debt enslaves people. However, gross centralisation does do harm, and I support a two-tier government system, as I had originally planned. One tier administrates on a state level(supplies, local projects, and the other administrates on a federal level(laws and rules that all states must abide, regulation, price setting, military, courts, forming corporations, projects, setting agendas, diplomacy, setting standards, along with anything I may have missed.) . Safe overcalculations are made on different levels. Better to be safe than sorry(and undersupplied) Surplus is carried over and kept, and supply centres on the levels above are told to alter the next batch sent according to how much surplus there is, and how much is expected.(products would be made to last). It will NOT suffer from inflation, prices and values will be concrete. If supplies are low for some reason then prices might be raised temporarily. People would be restricted from buying more than a certain amount of something a day(for instance someone trying to make a profit from buying all the video games in a store and holding people hostage to high, unregulated prices.

As such, there would be certain restrictions on supply hogging, and buying too much of one thing. (there would be a restriction on the amount of stores in an area) To avoid corruption within retailers, everything would have to be paid for or nulled.(no freebies for store owners, if they want something they will have to pay for it, they only regulate the transfer of credit, and stop people from stealing things, also regulating supplies to the shop, saying whether or not there is surplus of a certain item.

There would be allowances for trade between individuals, selling works of art, and rare things. There would still be copyright and credit given to artists of all kinds, and as such, a person could make a living from creating valuable works of art yet not being officially employed, provided the art is bought(no prices set for non-production rare goods).

Ouch. Debt slavery is a whole nother animal. Yuck.

Capitalist debt freely accepted? If debt is unjust slavery then why do people accept the horrors of it? Debt is a choice for many and that can be seen from consumption habits of human beings. So, it is better to be wrong in the manner of having a shortage of goods on every level? Prices are not concrete, that ignores the truth that prices ultimately reflect. Your entire system comes at the cost of human choices and human trade-offs and ultimately by its very nature MUST suffer from greater inefficiency. The entire issue of people buying that junk is one of speculation and it ultimately allows for those not willing to spend all night in line to get a product and is in that way efficient. Your system will still miscalculate on a level greater than that of capitalism and it will suffer from the horrors that communist systems before that have run into. You still have horrible feedback mechanisms, you still have the terrible problems of trying to maintain an unchanging structure in a changing environment, and you still have the problems of determining the calculus of that which is forever variable. Let me let you in to a vital truth, the wisdom of the crowds expressed through markets is greater than that of the planners, this is an insight that leads to ideas such as the Efficient Market Hypothesis on stocks, that lead to the idea of political futures markets, and to many other market phenomena that end up beating experts many many times.
Buying too much of one thing? That is not a problem. It is an attempt to guess how to best serve the needs of other people and as such really only aids efficiency and doesn't hurt it. The apparatus required to prevent theft would be quite difficult, and having that apparatus in a government is a danger to all freedom by its very nature. This system's very aim is not efficiency but to murder entrepreneurship and prevent people from trying to do better.

This is not as bad, but the system is still a failure compared to capitalism. You are really only recreating the Soviet Union and the ideas birthed by said system.

The acceptance of debt is based upon choices, and it alone cannot disprove debt, only call for efficient debt laws. He calls for the elimination of all debt systems, which rather than creating evils actually promote the efficient use of capital within a society for the good of all. If one hates debt then one can live more simply, however, considering the number of people that buy SUVs and make other high cost economic choices, I must argue that this is not a matter of exploiters but rather of choices.

I don't think a Socialist society would be very successful if we let people just give up on life and be "artists" while getting a government paycheck every week. If too many people became "artists" instead of doing a real job, then the whole system would crash.

Err, yeah.

Before I go on holiday until Sunday...
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There IS a feedback system, which monitors the situation, plans ahead, and adapts the system according to needs, wants, avails, effects on society, and whatever else. People will be asked to allocate their queries and suggestions, and will be rewarded for giving in progress surveys.

Even though debt is a choice, what about kids who suffer because their parent's business fails and they end up on the streets? What about students who fail to get employed? Woe, woe, and more woe.

How are the crouds wise? How are people who are grossly overpaid for something that produces nothing useful deserving and wise? How are capitalists who take advantage of people in the name of pure greed doing any good?

Machinocracy would not kill entrepeneurship. It would in fact give those with the right ideas for the future a greater chance to improve the world. Humanity needs direction and collectivism, a common goal of advancement, whilst making space for individualism on a personal and not economic scale. People would be able to take place in championships, and compete with each other for prizes. Oh so many championships and competitions.

If people were to want goods or resources on a large scale, then that would be allowed, though they would be advised to order from national reserve stocks, in bulk, or go to a wholesale warehouse.

The system would value entertainment and recreation greatly, as it is essential for keeping the population happy and stimulated, whilst it subconsciously educates and inspires.
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That will be all, I am going on holiday now.

Last edited by Anubis on 09 Apr 2007, 8:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thing is, will people want to buy that art? I think it would be wise to define what is and what is not fine art, and issue licenses accordingly. It is something which depends on how many good artists there are, and if there are too many good artists... then the free sale of art would probably have to be reviewed. People would not be paid by the government if they gave up work to do that.

You mean they will get gift cards? That is hardly incentive to fill out a system, not only that but the feedback does not have to be listened to by the authority
What about them? Their parents are the ones who took these risks and their parents are responsible for these things. I do not wish for children to go out on the street and if you noticed I actually supported a minimal welfare state to prevent certain extremes, however, we should not abolish choice and freedom because bad things may happen. With the students then my reply is simple: we need to improve the education system and we need to make it easier for these people to get hired by liberalizing labor markets. Minimum wages and measures like this can make it difficult for high schoolers to get hired, and because job experience has a positive effect on future wages, improving this is an imperative.
They are wise in their capability to discern how to act in their interests. Overpaid is a useless statement, how do you determine who is overpaid? You don't. You merely are applying some horrible labor theory of value to a system where the idea is soundly rejected. No business ever seeks to pay for something they don't have to, CEO pay has been driven up by high competition over salaries caused by firm size and the possibility for profits. The amount of money gotten by the CEOs is merely a drop in the bucket for these companies, but the possible benefits can be enormous. There are currently efforts to curb possible abuses of the system by shareholders though. Not only that but name these exploitative capitalists. As I said, in order to have money you must get it in return for something. People don't give money for nothing, therefore you must have done something for them.

"Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rates higher and which lower, in short, what men should believe and strive for." - Friedrich Hayek

Humanity needs freedom and individualism, direction is something that every individual can give themselves, and collectivism is a horrid thing that only belongs to ants. Championships and prizes already exist, we can find as many as we want. However, people need to be free to own their labor and its products, this is different from the labor theory of value, but rather a recognizance of the human freedom to form one's own contracts and things like that.
Ok, why not just go to a bulk retailer of some form?
Why can it not be entertainment that does not educate and does not inspire? Heck, I enjoy Rock and Metal music, yet many groups argue that those forms of music are evil and depress. Should I have the right to listen?

Art is defined by buyers, not by governments or sellers and to define art in such a manner is only indicative of blindness. The greatest art we have was at one time hated. Government doesn't define art. Experts do not define art. Therefore the entire attempt is blind.

"Humanity needs freedom and individualism, direction is something that every individual can give themselves, and collectivism is a horrid thing that only belongs to ants. Championships and prizes already exist, we can find as many as we want. However, people need to be free to own their labor and its products, this is different from the labor theory of value, but rather a recognizance of the human
freedom to form one's own contracts and things like that. "

I find it hilarious that you say "collectivism is a horrid thing", any economic system is collectivist! Any system of private property is *collectivist*, people agree collectively to institute and respect a right (a fictional right) that doesn't exist in any sense except as an idea in human minds. In any system where people agree to co-operate or behave in a certain way that is essentially agreed upon is --- wait for it --- collectivist. No one is 100% an "individual", no one really "owns themselves" 100% and are truly a "Free and rational agent", no you are part of THE most collectivist system of all: Mother nature.

To illustrate, lets be satirical for a moment: How about we make you free from oxygen and put you in outer space for a while? What's that... you're depedent on oxygen, ozone and the earth for your livelyhood, but I thought you were an **individual ** smoeone "set apart from the 'mass' collective of earth, air and water", someone who is ** resource independent** and 'doesn't need anyone' or is dependent on anything.

The truth is no one is resource independent, and therefore there are only illusions of individualism. i.e. having the energy and resources to engage in or perform/manifest your will (to change the environment). You are one of the the biggest collectivist organisms on the planet: Trillions of cells co-operating together to ensure the survival and form of your body every day, over 70 million cells kill themselves willingly so that your hand does not become deformed and start to look like something out of the hunchback of notredame.

People must agree on an economic system or to participate *in it* and abide by the laws and not resist it by force (i.e. killing you for and taking over for instance).

If anything humanity needs to grow up... what you call "freedom and individualism" is nothing more then the prejudices of an animal nervous system. You behave as you do because *thats how you were genteically programmed to behave*

I am not free in capitalism I do not *own* my own labour, the state-business hybrid government owns me indirectly by controlling access to food, housing, etc, and taxing my existence. The worst myth of capitalist society is that wage laborers are "free". Being free is 1) Having options and energy to perform your will and overcome resistance to performing your will. and 2) Having the option NOT to work or acquire money and still be able to feed and support oneself. Many people are not in such a position in capitalist society.

Next, you can't expect people to behave *rationally*. This is the whole fraud upon which all idealogies are perpetuated... it's the reason marxism failed and it's the reason capitalism will be reformed and replaced with some kind of "hybrid market" representing ideals from different veins of idealogical thought. I'm staunchly non-idealogical, I've moved beyond rhetoric and into what I call roblem solving:. That is find the facts or defining characteristics of a problem and then go about brow beating other people and their ideals with them, and see what emerges from their true nature and character.

More often then not the people who promote capitalism and individualism are the most barbaric. Statistically rich people donate lessthe %1 of their income to charitable causes. When they have enormous excess of the pool of money in a fixed money economy, if thats not the behaviour of a barbarian. I'm not sure what is exactly, it's like sitting on the air supply of the world and holding it ransom, its no wonder we have poverty when people the richest people in the world frequently sit on the money, or even when they "invest it" it always comes back into their hands via profits so nothing really changes.

Most people pay lip service to saying they care about poverty, inequality, etc. But any economy with a fixed supply of money can only mean one thing: You can never eliminate poverty.

Most people think they make *choices* what the are actually doing is *justifying their preconcieved notions*.

People are slaves to their base instincts... unfortunately any economic system in which people are "ruggedly individualistic" competing for resources means two things:

1) Constant war
2) Constant poverty
3) Constant irrationality

Man is not rational, the whole dogma that man is rational is the whole problem with modern economic propagandists. The biggest threats governments are worried about is uprising of the working and lower classes in "first world" nations. You obviously have not a clue that governments and businesses today are worried about the instability thats being caused by capitalism, you are so divorced from the problems of real people within the economy its apparent you need exposure to real people living in real financially strapped circumstances.

I find it hilarious that you cannot distinguish between different aspects of human systems. Different economic systems different in their institutes. A system of private property ISN'T collectivist though, you may argue that the laws to institute this system have a collectivist quality, however, the notion of property itself is not just a legal creation and whether or not a law enforced it a gun could. All rights can be noted as fictional, the only thing is that the property right allows both control over your material circumstance to some extent, and it allows for proper incentives and economic calculations. I am not arguing 100%, however, you cannot claim that a man with chains is as free as a man without unless you lack all mind. Mother nature is not collectivist.
Your satire isn't, and your comparison speaks only of fail.
Technically speaking though a human being is not a cell nor is resource dependence anywhere close to the philosophical issue at hand. To claim that a human being is a cell is just the same as claiming that he is a brick, both are models that are fundamentally lacking.
All systems are allowed by consent of the governed, however, that does not mean that all systems are equally collectivist.
Ok. I don't want to live in your ant world and that does not matter where this inclination comes in. Your biases are similarly irrational so you cannot state that I am the primitive between the 2 of us.
Technically speaking you have some ownership. You mean that by specialization we end up working in different areas? No way!! If you want complete freedom as you would define it then I would advise you to go and live in some hills. To me having independent groups working to provide food, and housing means freedom as together we can independently form agreements for whatever end we both choose. Taxes though are necessary for certain services in the current arrangement of society though, however, we can all agree that higher taxes are more collectivist than lower taxes and I prefer the latter. 1 is false, freedom does not mean that you must be able to overcome resistance, if I am in a field and cannot move a 5000 lb rock then I still have freedom. 2 means that nature isn't free and if natural circumstances are defined as unfree then you need a rational definition of freedom AKA one that makes logical sense in context. Capitalist society is better than past societies. In the 1900s only the top 6 or 7% of all people would have been above the modern poverty line, today it is a lot more.
Technically I hope they will. Capitalism doesn't require pure rationality and many libertarian economists do not argue that humanity is strongly rational. In fact, modern capitalist ideas also argue that capitalism is needed to properly foster the creative side of humanity and to have entrepreneurship and innovation, 2 things that a hybrid market goes into. You are not staunchly non-ideological in the slightest though, the fact that you are trying to debunk capitalism and hurling insults at notions of freedom are both tendencies of an ideologue. The non-ideological person would have argued to make whatever system thought of to be effective. Problems are being solved though of course, the system of anarchy in production does a very good job of solving problems so long as people truly express interest in those problems being solved.
Ok, the first sentence has absolutely no foundation. I see barbarians who support all sorts of systems and I think that my friends who are liberals are more barbaric than I am, so to claim that more classically liberal minded people are more barbaric seems to make no sense in any context. Ok, they do not which seems to express a tendency to not believe that such is desirable, and given they have the wealth and maintain it then there is not a very strong tendency for me to see a massive problem with that. Fixed money? We have inflation and printing. Not only that but wealth is also created and wealth is not money, money symbolized that wealth but isn't it. Holding the resources that one has acquired and offering them to people in exchange for returns on said investment is barbaric? Wow, non-ideological goodness. Yes, the entire reason for poverty is because people have money and they decide to put it into the causes with the highest returns. That destroys wealth!! !! !! ! Bah, just because they invest doesn't mean that they increase their wealth faster than others do. Having ideas and ability is the prerequisite for fast growth.
We have reduced poverty significantly. In fact, your entire idea leads from nothing. Absolutely nothing. It is an assumption that money = wealth and almost a cry back to mercantilism. Is the amount of money is set forever, but poverty has declined significantly under many capitalist systems, then I would say that money does not create poverty but actually reduces it.
Ok.
Right, yes, we are slaves. We need enlightened autocrats to force their morality and ideologies upon us. Let's see, major wars have decreased. Poverty has decreased. Irrationality has even decreased as education is available in stores to the masses, and modern people are actually more learned and better thinkers than their ancestors. It appears blatantly obvious to me that something is wrong with the logic or premises that your conclusions reach.
Man is somewhat rational. We don't have to argue perfect rationality, in fact Arnold Kling called rationality a hat, something that can be on or off at one's whim. No, not at all. The idea that we are or should be worried about uprisings is ridiculous, very very ridiculous. It belongs in some Marxist textbook from the Industrial Revolution. There is no trend of that nature, there is no tendency, and the entire argument that we should be worried has as much validity as a fairy tale. Capitalism today is the most stable it has ever been, so they shouldn't even be sweating so much either as you claim. It is apparent that you are divorced from reality more so than I have been. We see illegal immigrants living in a capitalist 1st world society and being better off than they were previously, and yet capitalism is the evil??? I think that you need to actually understand what is going on sir as most of what you have stated is wrong.

My opinion is that capitalism does not encourage people to get rich off their own ideas, but to steal others. A socialist society would actually encourage people to contribute, because their ideas could not be stolen.

Okay: Socialism vs Capitalism.

Well, both look great, sound great (or terrible in the right context). But when introduced into the real world, without careful moderation, their faults usually crush them. Socialism, all to often it is removed and replaced by its evil twin Communism an the whole thing becomes a dictatorship where peoples lives are cut away for the slightest misdeed. Capitalism, it can lead down a path of which corporations rise above the law and human lives become little more than statistics, to be filed away when the work is done, people nurturing the false hope that because they are free and a democratic they will be able to stand proud amoung the people of this earth.

Now with the dark paths seen (only them because the good possibilities are basically the two different pieces of the same pie(damn your american fixation with the accursed pastry)) which one do I prefere?

Socialism. Why?

Because unlike the Capitalist side, the Socialist fault is clearly visable. While Capitalism routes itself deep into the structural integrity of society and is like an eternal weed, Socialism is clear and easy to remove should it falter.

My friends no one idea is right. A mixture of both Socialism and Capitalism makes the best society. you should not devote yourself to anyone train of thought no matter how fanatical your opinion is on one.

This only an opinion and not an actual source of information, feel free to tear it a part with all your might.

Not really. Capitalist societies have a thing known as intellectual property which means that individuals own their ideas and can prosper off of these ideas. Not only that but if you want to profit off of your idea then you can be the one to put it in place and act as an entrepreneur. Socialism really doesn't have a good way to tie individual ideas to their owners and the socialist system is more likely to subsist off of stolen ideas.