It occurs to me that most critiques of state-based ownership rest their case
on twentieth century examples. Since all twentieth centuries examples are
based on a narrow theoretical base, this seems more than unfair.

Capitalism appeals to human selfishness, and it has its own built-in
propaganda machine, that is to say, advertising, which does a pretty good
job of convincing people that they want what capitalism has to offer and
they are the kind of people who fit into a capitalistic society.

Socialism at its theoretical base appeals to human goodheartedness.
Twentieth century socialism's propaganda often appeared heavy-handed and not
well integrated to human needs.

All the societies where socialism has worked that I can think of are also
theocracies. The Inca empire is the one I know the best, but ancient Egypt
also seems to have been run this way along with others I am less sure of.

So, it appears that socialism needs a feel-good propaganda arm that
capitalism already has builtin. Discuss.

Suzanne Blom wrote:

> It occurs to me that most critiques of state-based ownership rest
> their case on twentieth century examples.

Note, please, that _in theory_ under socialism, ownership is by the
people rather than by the state.

The original socialists were anarchists.

Marx derided them as "utopian socialists." In his hardheaded theory
(scientific socialism,) it is recognized that there needs to be a
transition period (the dictatorship of the proletariat) before the
state can be fully abolished.

Oddly enough, no Marxist government has gotten very far towards the
abolition of government. I suspect this is partly cultural inertia --
if the Russian Revolution had ended with anarchists triumphant, the
result would have been something rather like the Tsarist Empire and the
Soviet Union. And partly the temptations of power; when you're in
control, centralized power doesn't look as bad as it did when you were
on the outside.

--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://clerkfuturist.wordpress.com
mirror 1: http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
mirror 2: http://dsgood.wordpress.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood

Suzanne Blom <sueblom@execpc.com> wrote:

> It occurs to me that most critiques of state-based ownership rest their case
> on twentieth century examples. Since all twentieth centuries examples are
> based on a narrow theoretical base, this seems more than unfair.
>
> Capitalism appeals to human selfishness, and it has its own built-in
> propaganda machine, that is to say, advertising, which does a pretty good
> job of convincing people that they want what capitalism has to offer and
> they are the kind of people who fit into a capitalistic society.
>
> Socialism at its theoretical base appeals to human goodheartedness.
> Twentieth century socialism's propaganda often appeared heavy-handed and not
> well integrated to human needs.
>
> All the societies where socialism has worked that I can think of are also
> theocracies. The Inca empire is the one I know the best, but ancient Egypt
> also seems to have been run this way along with others I am less sure of.
>
> So, it appears that socialism needs a feel-good propaganda arm that
> capitalism already has builtin. Discuss.

Socialism does appear to work fairly well for purposes of the creation
of intellectual property: see Wikipedia, Distributed Proofreaders, et
multi cetera. (Wikipedia has had its share of controversies, but no-one
can deny that it's remained productive.)

Is this simply because the internet has allowed more idealists to
concentrate themselves together in order to create than the physical
world has?

Or is it because intellectual property is fundamentally different from
physical property, in that it can be shared without the sharer losing
anything? (A data point against this is the phenomenon I see more and
more of, which is the huge response rate received in online appeals
among networks of friends, eg when someone is ill, or a bunch of
writers' laptops are stolen.)

Or is it because people with access to the internet have more of a
surplus of both property and time-to-create than people in previous
societies which have attempted socialism? (This seems a powerful
explainer to me: people in Russia and in China were *poor*; it is hard
to share with one's neighbours when one is hungry oneself or fears being
made hungry by it; far easier when one is comfortable and secure in
one's comfort.)

I recently read an inspiring article that argued that the technology of
the 20th century is generating a large surplus of leisure time which
until recently has been frittered away on watching television and other
forms of entertainment consumption, but which can now, with the advent
of modern web technologies, be partly spent on various forms of
entertainment/knowledge production; and she points out that even a tiny
per-person investment can have/will have/is having tremendous results.

http://www.shirky.com/herecomeseverybody/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.h
tml

Perhaps socialism is something that cannot be imposed(1), but that can
be grown into.


(Postscript: The 'feel-good propaganda' of this kind of modern web
technology is probably the concept of getting 'friends' and earning
'karma points' and such.)

Zeborah
(1) I sometimes suspect/fear the same thing about democracy
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

In message <1LydnYqUEp9iDu_VnZ2dnUVZ_gKdnZ2d@posted.localnet>, Suzanne
Blom <sueblom@execpc.com> writes
>It occurs to me that most critiques of state-based ownership rest their case
>on twentieth century examples. Since all twentieth centuries examples are
>based on a narrow theoretical base, this seems more than unfair.
>
>Capitalism appeals to human selfishness, and it has its own built-in
>propaganda machine, that is to say, advertising, which does a pretty good
>job of convincing people that they want what capitalism has to offer and
>they are the kind of people who fit into a capitalistic society.

Self-interest is pretty much universal and the market is capable of
making a person intending to act only for their own benefit do things
that benefit everyone.

As Adam Smith said

"Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do
this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which
you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this
manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of
those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the
benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we
expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their
self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of
their advantages."

>
>Socialism at its theoretical base appeals to human goodheartedness.
>Twentieth century socialism's propaganda often appeared heavy-handed and not
>well integrated to human needs.
>
>All the societies where socialism has worked that I can think of are also
>theocracies. The Inca empire is the one I know the best, but ancient Egypt
>also seems to have been run this way along with others I am less sure of.

Those ancient command economies didn't have to deal with technological
change, and 90% or so of production was food so the absence of price
signals was less important as there wasn't any great variation in
demand, whereas the market is capable of dealing with rapid changes in
technology and highly volatile demand. The decentralisation makes the
market very adaptable and pricing acts as a rapid method of transmitting
information about demand and supply.

Command economies can work for a time, war economies for example but due
to the absence of reliable price signals they gradually drift away from
an accurate balance of supply and demand while the price signals in the
market keep supply and demand co-ordinated. The more volatile the
technological base the faster this drift will occur, which means that
command economies are less equipped to deal with the modern world than
at any time in the past.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Livejournal http://brett-dunbar.livejournal.com/
Brett Paul Dunbar
To email me, use reply-to address

In article <1ijra1h.1fnczrf1oebboqN%zeborah@gmail.com>,
zeborah@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote:

> Suzanne Blom <sueblom@execpc.com> wrote:
>
> > It occurs to me that most critiques of state-based ownership rest their case
> > on twentieth century examples. Since all twentieth centuries examples are
> > based on a narrow theoretical base, this seems more than unfair.
> >
> > Capitalism appeals to human selfishness, and it has its own built-in
> > propaganda machine, that is to say, advertising, which does a pretty good
> > job of convincing people that they want what capitalism has to offer and
> > they are the kind of people who fit into a capitalistic society.
> >
> > Socialism at its theoretical base appeals to human goodheartedness.
> > Twentieth century socialism's propaganda often appeared heavy-handed and not
> > well integrated to human needs.
> >
> > All the societies where socialism has worked that I can think of are also
> > theocracies. The Inca empire is the one I know the best, but ancient Egypt
> > also seems to have been run this way along with others I am less sure of.
> >
> > So, it appears that socialism needs a feel-good propaganda arm that
> > capitalism already has builtin. Discuss.
>
> Socialism does appear to work fairly well for purposes of the creation
> of intellectual property: see Wikipedia, Distributed Proofreaders, et
> multi cetera. (Wikipedia has had its share of controversies, but no-one
> can deny that it's remained productive.)

It's worth noting that "socialism" has a variety of different meanings.
In the "government ownership and control of the means of production
sense, Wikipedia and your other examples are not in the least socialist.
They are capitalist in the sense of coming out of voluntary exchange.

Of course, "capitalism" also has considerable ambiguity--in particular,
it sounds as though it has some particular connection to either capital
or capitalists, whereas in fact it doesn't. Socialist societies have
capital too, and suppliers of capital are no more central to a
capitalist society than suppliers of labor or land. That's one reason to
use a term such as "free market" instead of "capitalist."

> Is this simply because the internet has allowed more idealists to
> concentrate themselves together in order to create than the physical
> world has?

It may be worth noting that Wikipedia is the creation of a libertarian,
who, at least when I first knew him, was an Objectivist, an Ayn Rand
follower.

....

> Or is it because people with access to the internet have more of a
> surplus of both property and time-to-create than people in previous
> societies which have attempted socialism? (This seems a powerful
> explainer to me: people in Russia and in China were *poor*; it is hard
> to share with one's neighbours when one is hungry oneself or fears being
> made hungry by it; far easier when one is comfortable and secure in
> one's comfort.)

The attempted socialism in those societies, and among the Incas, was the
"state ownership and control of the means of production" version,
whereas what you are describing is something more like "non-market
production" or "gift economy" or ... . These are radically different
systems, and the latter is, in my view at least, in the same broad
category as capitalism.

"Sharing" in Stalinist Russia or Maoist China was done not because you
were generous but because you would be shot or imprisoned if you didn't.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now

Zeborah wrote:

> (Postscript: The 'feel-good propaganda' of this kind of modern web
> technology is probably the concept of getting 'friends' and earning
> 'karma points' and such.)

Hrm. Another thing that makes me think I'm immune to feel-good propaganda. I
*like* making web pages and seeing that people use them, and for people to
tell me that they find them useful (either explicitly or by using them
again and again) but formalised karma points or social-network 'friends'
don't do anything for me except making me feel faintly guilty.

Irina

--
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth
should that mean that it is not real?" --Albus Dumbledore
http://www.valdyas.org/foundobjects/index.cgi Latest: 07-Jul-2008
Purplish Cooking Pages http://www.valdyas.org/irina/purplishcookingpages/

"Suzanne Blom":
> It occurs to me that most critiques of state-based
> ownership rest their case on twentieth century
> examples. Since all twentieth centuries examples are
> based on a narrow theoretical base, this seems more
> than unfair.

On the contrary, socialist disasters go back four
hundred years or so, for example the Pilgrim famine.
Shakespeare's Jack Cade is as twentieth century as
anyone. Jack Cade promises that everything shall be in
common, while unable to see a distinction between
everything being in common, and everything being owned
by Jack Cade. He promotes class war and holds trials
based on class justice, where guilt is determined by
evidence of class identity.

> Capitalism appeals to human selfishness, and it has
> its own built-in propaganda machine, that is to say,
> advertising, which does a pretty good job of
> convincing people that they want what capitalism has
> to offer and they are the kind of people who fit into
> a capitalistic society.
>
> Socialism at its theoretical base appeals to human
> goodheartedness.

Do the phrases "class war" and "race war" ring any
bells? Why is it that socialists so often wear tee
shirts and badges depicting notorious sadists, torturers
and mass murderers?

Some forms of socialism, notably Owen's did appeal to
human good heartedness. It swiftly became apparent,
however, that people were more inclined to debate what
others should do, than do it themselves, that good
heartedness did not get the corn planted, that there is
a limited supply of good heartedness, and if one relies
on it, then it is swiftly used up. Whereupon Owen's
utopia ran out of scratch.

Thereafter, socialists have usually relied on terror and
torture, rather than good nature, and every socialist
with a Che Guevera tee shirt implicitly tells us how he
plans to get toilet paper in the toilets and light bulbs
in their sockets.

> Twentieth century socialism's propaganda often
> appeared heavy-handed and not well integrated to human
> needs.
>
> All the societies where socialism has worked that I
> can think of are also theocracies. The Inca empire is
> the one I know the best|

The Incan empire used terror and mass murder. Very
twentieth century socialism. Recall that the Spaniards
were entirely frank and open about their brutality and
greed, yet had no trouble finding indian allies. Pizzaro
conquered the Incan empire with one hundred and sixty
eight Spanish mercenaries and a completely frank and
open intent to loot and rape, while his Indian allies
intended not conquest, but genocide. His Indian allies
did not want the gold, they wanted an end to the Incas
that had conquered them, and had no hesitation in doing
deal with the devil to accomplish that goal.

> but ancient Egypt also seems to have been run this way
> along with others

Ancient Egypt tried a lot of different things over
several thousand years, but usually operated by a land
tax on private enterprise farming. Some of its
socialist activities are described in the Old Testament,
and seem to have been less than popular with the
Hebrews. "Bricks without straw" sounds reminiscent of
Soviet planning.

--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

On 07 Jul 2008 23:02:56 GMT, "Dan Goodman"
<dsgood@iphouse.com> wrote:
> Note, please, that _in theory_ under socialism,
> ownership is by the people rather than by the state.

In socialism one decision must be made for all,and
imposed on all. An organization capable of giving
effect to "the people's will" in this manner is
necessarily totalitarian

If the means of production are owned by the people as a
whole, rather than by particular people, then decisions
have to be made on behalf of the people as a whole, and
if a great many extremely detailed decisions have to be
made on behalf of the people as a whole, terror and mass
murder will be needed.

Quite apart from the Misean problem that attempting to
make decisions in for the entire economy
results in a labyrinthine bureaucracy that seizes up in
red tape.

As libertarians are fond of pointing out, no one knows
how to make a pencil.

Plan me a pencil.

You cannot do it. The knowledge to make a pencil is
distributed knowledge, spread among many buyers and
sellers in the market place.

--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

(Zeborah) wrote:
> Socialism does appear to work fairly well for purposes
> of the creation of intellectual property: see
> Wikipedia,

The theory of what you call internet socialism was
developed and explained by hard core anarcho
capitalists, and has for the most part been carried out
by hard core extremist pro capitalists.

Wickepedia is project created and organized by hard core
extremist supporters of capitalism - and indeed could
only have been created by such people. Wikipedia was a
reaction against predecessors who strangled their own
activities in planning, consensus building, compromise,
and committee meetings.

> Is this simply because the internet has allowed more
> idealists to concentrate themselves together in order
> to create than the physical world has?

See the article "The Cathedral and the Bazaar",
http://www.redhat.com/support/wpapers/community/cathedral/whitepaper_cathedral.html
which explains the reason.
Raymond is, like myself, a hard core procapitalist who
takes it for granted as self evident and entirely
uncontroversial that socialism is a nightmare of
bureaucracy, tyranny, and fear, sought by people
addicted to brutal power, that government is evil and
incompetent and harms everything it touches. The taken
for granted orthodoxy in his circle views the taken for
granted orthodoxy of this newsgroup as a tiny little
weird sect of maniacs.


--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

David Friedman <ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:

> In article <1ijra1h.1fnczrf1oebboqN%zeborah@gmail.com>,
> zeborah@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote:
>
> > Or is it because people with access to the internet have more of a
> > surplus of both property and time-to-create than people in previous
> > societies which have attempted socialism? (This seems a powerful
> > explainer to me: people in Russia and in China were *poor*; it is hard
> > to share with one's neighbours when one is hungry oneself or fears being
> > made hungry by it; far easier when one is comfortable and secure in
> > one's comfort.)
>
> The attempted socialism in those societies, and among the Incas, was the
> "state ownership and control of the means of production" version,

When I studied it in my fifth-form History class (these days that'd be
Year 11), I got the distinct impression that Russia at least began by
paying lip-service to the theory that the goal was for the people to own
and control everything, but that since they were poor, uneducated, etc,
it was necessary for the Party to hold the reins for a while until the
people were capable of taking control themselves.

(It's a very pretty theory, right up until one says it in ironical
tones.)

> whereas what you are describing is something more like "non-market
> production" or "gift economy" or ... . These are radically different
> systems, and the latter is, in my view at least, in the same broad
> category as capitalism.

That may be because you think capitalism is good for people.(1) I find
it hard to consider a system whereby poor people need routinely pay more
for staple items than rich people do as in any meaningful way similar to
a gift economy.

> "Sharing" in Stalinist Russia or Maoist China was done not because you
> were generous but because you would be shot or imprisoned if you didn't.

That's implementation, not ideology, and is probably not the kind of
propaganda Suzanne was talking about.

Zeborah
(1) This is not to say I think it's bad for people. I think it's better
than a lot of other systems, and a nice stepping stone onto something
better yet.
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

In article <1ijra1h.1fnczrf1oebboqN%zeborah@gmail.com>,
zeborah@gmail.com says...
already has builtin. Discuss.
>
> Socialism does appear to work fairly well for purposes of the creation
> of intellectual property: see Wikipedia, Distributed Proofreaders, et
> multi cetera. (Wikipedia has had its share of controversies, but no-one
> can deny that it's remained productive.)
>
> Is this simply because the internet has allowed more idealists to
> concentrate themselves together in order to create than the physical
> world has?
>
> Or is it because intellectual property is fundamentally different from
> physical property, in that it can be shared without the sharer losing
> anything? (A data point against this is the phenomenon I see more and
> more of, which is the huge response rate received in online appeals
> among networks of friends, eg when someone is ill, or a bunch of
> writers' laptops are stolen.)

I should say that it is more that *some* kinds of IP are well-suited to
generation by means of organised amateur contributions.

The principle is somewhat less successful when it comes to the
generation of high-quality literary works, for example.

- Gerry Quinn

In article <1ijrqll.1gcxnmqf0invrN%zeborah@gmail.com>,
zeborah@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote:

> > whereas what you are describing is something more like "non-market
> > production" or "gift economy" or ... . These are radically different
> > systems, and the latter is, in my view at least, in the same broad
> > category as capitalism.
>
> That may be because you think capitalism is good for people.(1)

I don't think so. My point is that all of these are decentralized
systems based on voluntary association.

I don't known if you have read Eric Raymond's _The Cathedral and the
Bazaar_, which is about open source software, but he goes into some
detail on the analogy between the norms of the open source movement and
the rules of property law.

> I find
> it hard to consider a system whereby poor people need routinely pay more
> for staple items than rich people do as in any meaningful way similar to
> a gift economy.

I don't see why you find that puzzling. You can easily enough have a
gift economy in which rich and prominent people are more likely to
receive gifts than poor people in need. A gift economy isn't about
equality any more than an ordinary exchange economy is.

> > "Sharing" in Stalinist Russia or Maoist China was done not because you
> > were generous but because you would be shot or imprisoned if you didn't.
>
> That's implementation, not ideology, and is probably not the kind of
> propaganda Suzanne was talking about.

The ideology was that the peasants were obligated to surrender their
crop to the authorities to be allocated, not that the authorities were
supposed to politely ask for the crop and accept "no" as an answer.

You don't seem to have responded (unless in a post I haven't seen yet)
to my point that two totally different things are being described as
"socialism."

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now

In article <8kv574ha533tnphjal4fv9jrdctaltloj7@4ax.com>,
James A. Donald <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

> Some forms of socialism, notably Owen's did appeal to
> human good heartedness. It swiftly became apparent,
> however, that people were more inclined to debate what
> others should do, than do it themselves, that good
> heartedness did not get the corn planted, that there is
> a limited supply of good heartedness, and if one relies
> on it, then it is swiftly used up. Whereupon Owen's
> utopia ran out of scratch.
>

I think there have been small societies based on some version of common
ownership and voluntary cooperation that have worked for a generation or
so, with the Oneida commune a pretty clear example. I don't know enough
about the history of monasteries, or the more communal religious sects,
to know if they provide examples of the same thing on a small scale
measured by population but a larger scale in time.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now

David Friedman <ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:

> You don't seem to have responded (unless in a post I haven't seen yet)
> to my point that two totally different things are being described as
> "socialism."

You're right, I didn't respond to it. So?

You may notice that I haven't responded to every point in your present
post, either. That's because the obnoxiousness of your last paragraph,
quoted above, made me wonder yet again why I keep giving you a
twenty-second chance at this human interaction thing.

I really don't understand you. You claim to enjoy having conversations
with me, but surely a person who enjoyed it would try to make sure I
enjoyed it too, so that I'd actually continue having conversations with
you. But you don't try any such thing, and so I don't enjoy it, and so
I herewith, yet again, discontinue the conversation.

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

Zeborah:
> When I studied it in my fifth-form History class
> (these days that'd be Year 11), I got the distinct
> impression that Russia at least began by paying
> lip-service to the theory that the goal was for the
> people to own and control everything, but that since
> they were poor, uneducated, etc, it was necessary for
> the Party to hold the reins for a while until the
> people were capable of taking control themselves.

In theory, the party led by mere inspiration. The
planners issued a general plan, and each worker's
Soviet, inspired by the party, "voluntarily" voted to
fulfill the plan, and usually to over fulfil the plan. Of
course, workers that failed to so vote usually suffered
something unpleasant.

Over time this hypocritical pretence of voluntarism was
gradually replaced by officially compulsory planning,
but as late as the sixties, there was still quite a bit
of this pretence.

In Cuba in 1992 they were still having meetings in which
they "voluntarily" agreed to fulfill the plan, and for
all I know may have still been "volunteering" until quite
recently.

--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

James A. Donald:
> > Some forms of socialism, notably Owen's did appeal
> > to human good heartedness. It swiftly became
> > apparent, however, that people were more inclined to
> > debate what others should do, than do it themselves,
> > that good heartedness did not get the corn planted,
> > that there is a limited supply of good heartedness,
> > and if one relies on it, then it is swiftly used up.
> > Whereupon Owen's utopia ran out of scratch.

David Friedman
> I think there have been small societies based on some
> version of common ownership and voluntary cooperation
> that have worked for a generation or so, with the
> Oneida commune a pretty clear example. I don't know
> enough about the history of monasteries, or the more
> communal religious sects, to know if they provide
> examples of the same thing on a small scale measured
> by population but a larger scale in time.

The smaller the scale, the less authoritarianism is
needed - the ultimate exemplar of that being the family.

Socialists are genuinely attempting to create a family
writ large, hence their genuinely sincere puzzlement
when people keep whining about tyranny and mass murder.
Socialists know that their intentions are good, and that
when they hold the peasant's child in the fire, they are
honestly doing their best to raise the peasant's
consciousness to the same elevated level of
enlightenment, kindness, generosity, and benevolence as
themselves, thus their puzzlement and sincere
indignation when these good intentions and attempted
good deeds are scorned.

--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

Zeborah <zeborah@gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps socialism is something that cannot be imposed(1), but that can
> be grown into.
<...>
> (1) I sometimes suspect/fear the same thing about democracy

If you'll accept a little-s non-Marxist sort of socialism, that's almost
certainly true, and I'm not sure why the latter is something to be
suspicious or fearful of.

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
preferred email |
is "nate" at the | "I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity.
posting domain | I'm for it." - prologue to "Smut" by Tom Lehrer

Nate Edel <archmage@sfchat.org> wrote:

> Zeborah <zeborah@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Perhaps socialism is something that cannot be imposed(1), but that can
> > be grown into.
> <...>
> > (1) I sometimes suspect/fear the same thing about democracy
>
> If you'll accept a little-s non-Marxist sort of socialism, that's almost
> certainly true, and I'm not sure why the latter is something to be
> suspicious or fearful of.

I'm neither suspicious nor fearful; I simply suspect (ie think) and
'fear' (ie think regretfully) that it may be the case. The regret comes
about because it would be nice for a country to be able to say
"Democracy, we can haz it," and all live happily ever after, rather than
to have to struggle through painful decades of fraud, corruption, and
worse on the way there.

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

In article <9evfk5x7do.ln2@mail.sfchat.org>,
archmage@sfchat.org (Nate Edel) wrote:

> Zeborah <zeborah@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Perhaps socialism is something that cannot be imposed(1), but that can
> > be grown into.
> <...>
> > (1) I sometimes suspect/fear the same thing about democracy
>
> If you'll accept a little-s non-Marxist sort of socialism, that's almost
> certainly true, and I'm not sure why the latter is something to be
> suspicious or fearful of.

Note that this started with a reference to state socialism, including a
pre-Marx example. "Socialism" is a word that gets used by different
people to mean very different things, but treating arrangements for
voluntary cooperation not involving money, such as distributed
proofreaders, as if they were merely a variants of the system used in
Stalin's Russia, doesn't, I think, lead to very useful conclusions.

I let Jimmy Wales know he was a socialist, with a suitable extract from
the thread, and he was amused--and puzzled, as I am, by the confusion.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now

In message <1ijt6ck.9ow4moowy3diN%zeborah@gmail.com>, Zeborah
<zeborah@gmail.com> writes
>David Friedman <ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>
>> You don't seem to have responded (unless in a post I haven't seen yet)
>> to my point that two totally different things are being described as
>> "socialism."
>
>You're right, I didn't respond to it. So?

Well the thing is it isn't entirely obvious that a command economy [1]
and a gift economy [2] are more similar to each other than they are to a
market economy [3]. David was querying your use of a single term to
refer to a command and gift economy. By using the same term you may be
confusing yourself as to there being some important differences and it
certainly makes it harder for others to work out what kind of economic
system you mean by socialism. I know that I am a little confused. You
can argue that a gift economy and market economy are both fundamentally
voluntary and as such are more similar to each other than to a command
economy.

All real economies have all three elements. Some services are public
goods paid from taxes, defence, roads, health care and education are
typically provided this way. There are charities and other unpaid
voluntary activities. And much is done on a purely commercial basis
through the market.


>
>You may notice that I haven't responded to every point in your present
>post, either. That's because the obnoxiousness of your last paragraph,
>quoted above, made me wonder yet again why I keep giving you a
>twenty-second chance at this human interaction thing.
>
>I really don't understand you. You claim to enjoy having conversations
>with me, but surely a person who enjoyed it would try to make sure I
>enjoyed it too, so that I'd actually continue having conversations with
>you. But you don't try any such thing, and so I don't enjoy it, and so
>I herewith, yet again, discontinue the conversation.

If you are attempting a debate it can help if you address the
fundamental points in dispute and make your argument clear, this
particular point of terminology seems to be fairly fundamental to your
disagreement. If you appear to simply ignore a central argument it can
look like you haven't really thought your position through. It also
makes it hard to construct a counter-argument if your argument is not
clearly expressed. Under those circumstances it seems reasonable to ask
for some clarification.

[1] Society decides what is to be produced and who should be
compelled to pay for it and distribute what is produced in
accord with how they feel things ought to be distributed.

[2] People produce whatever they feel like producing and it is
consumed by anyone who wants it.

[3] You produce stuff other people want and exchange it for stuff
they make that you want.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Livejournal http://brett-dunbar.livejournal.com/
Brett Paul Dunbar
To email me, use reply-to address

Brett Paul Dunbar
> Well the thing is it isn't entirely obvious that a
> command economy [1] and a gift economy [2] are more
> similar to each other than they are to a market
> economy [3]. David was querying your use of a single
> term to refer to a command and gift economy. By using
> the same term you may be confusing yourself as to
> there being some important differences

Because socialists confuse themselves, they are
sincerely and honestly surprised when success in
imposing socialism leads to people shooting at them,
even when, perhaps especially when, that success is
accomplished under the banner of class war.

Suzanne Blom believes that the Incas were nice guy
exemplars of the free and benevolent socialism that she
intends, and is curiously untroubled by the fact that
many of the beneficiaries of this benevolent socialism
chose to join up with the Conquistadors for a chance to
kill as many Incas as possible. Perhaps she feels that
those Indians were bad guys who had not yet had their
consciousness sufficiently elevated, and if only the
Incas had got around to holding a few teach ins before
the conquistadors arrived, all would have been well.

> [1] Society decides what is to be produced and who
> should be compelled to pay for it and
> distribute what is produced in accord with
> how they feel things ought to be distributed.
>
> [2] People produce whatever they feel like
> producing and it is consumed by anyone who
> wants it.
>
> [3] You produce stuff other people want and
> exchange it for stuff they make that you
> want.

Google for political activists using the word
"distribution". You will see that socialists believe we
already have system one, so they are genuinely puzzled
and confused by the proposition that introducing this
system requires terror and mass murder, and outraged by
the suggestion that it right and just to violently
resist the imposition of such a system. They don't
propose to introduce such a system, merely arrange that
nice generous kindly benevolent people like themselves
get to make these decisions, rather than the evil
greedy selfish bloated capitalists deciding.

And when you ask them whether they propose system one,
system two, or system three, they get offended, since
the question implies that we do not already have system
one, and if we do not already have system one then
socialists are evil people who intend to rob, enslave,
and kill, so merely asking the question insults
socialists, causing them to perceive you as deliberately
insulting and maliciously offensive, engaging in vicious
personal attacks instead of rational debate.

--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:13:32 -0700, David Friedman
> I let Jimmy Wales know he was a socialist, with a
> suitable extract from the thread, and he was
> amused--and puzzled, as I am, by the confusion.

I, who have more understanding of socialists than you or
he or the vast majority of the people in the free
software movement, am not at all puzzled by the
confusion. Indeed I have explained the reason for
Zeborah's confusion a couple times in this thread in
different ways using different language each time, but I
don't think the explanation likely to register with you
or with her. She probably thought I was just spitting
at her, and you probably found it difficult to
comprehend, because of your tendency to model people as
rational actors.


--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

Brett Paul Dunbar <brett@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> In message <1ijt6ck.9ow4moowy3diN%zeborah@gmail.com>, Zeborah
> <zeborah@gmail.com> writes
> >David Friedman <ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> >
> >> You don't seem to have responded (unless in a post I haven't seen yet)
> >> to my point that two totally different things are being described as
> >> "socialism."
> >
> >You're right, I didn't respond to it. So?

<snip explanation of why it might be relevant to someone participating
in a different conversation from the one I'm attempting to participate
in>

> >I really don't understand you. You claim to enjoy having conversations
> >with me, but surely a person who enjoyed it would try to make sure I
> >enjoyed it too, so that I'd actually continue having conversations with
> >you. But you don't try any such thing, and so I don't enjoy it, and so
> >I herewith, yet again, discontinue the conversation.
>
> If you are attempting a debate
<snip>

See, that's the thing, I'm not. I'm attempting a friendly conversation
tossing out half-baked ideas and wild speculation simply because it's
interesting and may spark more interesting thoughts.

*David F* is the one attempting a debate, despite the fact that I've
told him a bazillion and one times that I'm not interested in debating;
and I'm refusing to play because, you know? really, truly, I'm actually
not interested in debating.

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

David Friedman <ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:

> "Socialism" is a word that gets used by different
> people to mean very different things, but treating arrangements for
> voluntary cooperation not involving money, such as distributed
> proofreaders, as if they were merely a variants of the system used in
> Stalin's Russia, doesn't, I think, lead to very useful conclusions.

<blows raspberries at conclusions>

(Besides which, I never did any such thing. Feel free to twist my words
to contradict me if you like; I'll be over here rolling my eyes.)

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

Irina Rempt <irina@valdyas.org> wrote:

> Zeborah wrote:
>
> > (Postscript: The 'feel-good propaganda' of this kind of modern web
> > technology is probably the concept of getting 'friends' and earning
> > 'karma points' and such.)
>
> Hrm. Another thing that makes me think I'm immune to feel-good propaganda. I
> *like* making web pages and seeing that people use them, and for people to
> tell me that they find them useful (either explicitly or by using them
> again and again) but formalised karma points or social-network 'friends'
> don't do anything for me except making me feel faintly guilty.

Guilty for getting them, for not getting them, or other?

I suspect(1) no propaganda can work for everyone.

Zeborah
(1) Without either being or feeling suspicious.
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

Gerry Quinn <gerryq@indigo.ie> wrote:

> I should say that it is more that *some* kinds of IP are well-suited to
> generation by means of organised amateur contributions.
>
> The principle is somewhat less successful when it comes to the
> generation of high-quality literary works, for example.

The generation of high-quality niche literary works, quite probably. I
think it's theoretically possible to be successful for high-quality
popular literary works. It may not work in practice; we probably need
more time to find out.

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

In article <1ijvicb.qho8rbc4ggoaN%zeborah@gmail.com>,
zeborah@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote:

> David Friedman <ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>
> > "Socialism" is a word that gets used by different
> > people to mean very different things, but treating arrangements for
> > voluntary cooperation not involving money, such as distributed
> > proofreaders, as if they were merely a variants of the system used in
> > Stalin's Russia, doesn't, I think, lead to very useful conclusions.
>
> <blows raspberries at conclusions>
>
> (Besides which, I never did any such thing. Feel free to twist my words
> to contradict me if you like; I'll be over here rolling my eyes.)

If I contradict you you will again get angry at me, so I won't bother.
Feel free to reread the sequence of the thread, or not.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now

James A. Donald <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:13:32 -0700, David Friedman
> > I let Jimmy Wales know he was a socialist, with a
> > suitable extract from the thread, and he was
> > amused--and puzzled, as I am, by the confusion.
>
> I, who have more understanding of socialists than you or
> he or the vast majority of the people in the free
> software movement, am not at all puzzled by the
> confusion. Indeed I have explained the reason for
> Zeborah's confusion a couple times in this thread in
> different ways using different language each time, but I
> don't think the explanation likely to register with you
> or with her.

I'm not in fact confused. My words may have been confusing, but as to
that I care not a hwitten.

I'd be happy to clarify my thoughts for anyone interested in tossing
about interesting ideas, but Lud! they weren't such wondrous thoughts as
all that; I should much rather hear someone else's opinion on Suzanne's
original question, which I fear has been sadly neglected in all this
attempt to provide me with Education which I either already know or care
nought for.

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

David Friedman <ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:

> In article <1ijvicb.qho8rbc4ggoaN%zeborah@gmail.com>,
> zeborah@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote:
>
> > David Friedman <ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> >
> > > "Socialism" is a word that gets used by different
> > > people to mean very different things, but treating arrangements for
> > > voluntary cooperation not involving money, such as distributed
> > > proofreaders, as if they were merely a variants of the system used in
> > > Stalin's Russia, doesn't, I think, lead to very useful conclusions.
> >
> > <blows raspberries at conclusions>
> >
> > (Besides which, I never did any such thing. Feel free to twist my words
> > to contradict me if you like; I'll be over here rolling my eyes.)
>
> If I contradict you you will again get angry at me, so I won't bother.

Thank you.

> Feel free to reread the sequence of the thread, or not.

Already done.

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

Zeborah wrote:

> Irina Rempt <irina@valdyas.org> wrote:
>
>> formalised karma points or
>> social-network 'friends' don't do anything for me except making me feel
>> faintly guilty.
>
> Guilty for getting them, for not getting them, or other?

A kind of transferred guilt for people giving them to me; as if it's a bad
thing to sit there awaiting them. So, guilty for getting them, I suppose,
and on the other hand worried if I don't. It's like being forced to run a
race when I'm not at all interested in finishing first, but still getting
flak if I happen to finish last.

Irina

--
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth
should that mean that it is not real?" --Albus Dumbledore
http://www.valdyas.org/foundobjects/index.cgi Latest: 09-Jul-2008
Purplish Cooking Pages http://www.valdyas.org/irina/purplishcookingpages/

Zeborah:
> I'd be happy to clarify my thoughts for anyone
> interested in tossing about interesting ideas

I gather than in your eyes, David Friedman and Brett
Paul Dunbar are not interested in tossing about
interesting ideas - even though David Friedman has sold
a lot of books tossing around such ideas.

> I should much rather hear someone else's opinion on
> Suzanne's original question

Question? I saw no question. I saw the assertion that
socialism is really nice, but that due to insidious
capitalist propaganda, people have wrongfully formed a
bad opinion of it, and the solution is better
salesmanship.

To which non question I would reply that the main reason
people have formed a poor opinion of socialism is four
hundred years of utter disaster combined with frequent
episodes of famine and mass murder.

It is logically possible that externalities are so
numerous and serious, for example global warming, that
we would be better off with a decision making unit that
internalizes everything by making all decisions for
everyone. It turns out, however, to be extremely
difficult to get a large decision making unit that is
tolerably functional - this the socialist calculation
problem described by Mises, and dramatized in "I,
Pencil". Decision making by large units tends to seize
up in red tape and labyrinthine bureaucracy. Each layer
in the bureaucracy defrauds the layer above and the
layer below, as parodied by Keith Laumer in his Retief
series.

More seriously, a decision making unit that embraces all
of everyone's life is dangerously powerful, and thus
suffers from the various moral hazards described by
Bastiat and Hayek - the decision makers become drunk
with power and cut loose with terror and torture.

--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

In message <1ijvi76.1k8g8os8ud8cvN%zeborah@gmail.com>, Zeborah
<zeborah@gmail.com> writes
>Brett Paul Dunbar <brett@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> In message <1ijt6ck.9ow4moowy3diN%zeborah@gmail.com>, Zeborah
>> <zeborah@gmail.com> writes
>> >David Friedman <ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >I really don't understand you. You claim to enjoy having conversations
>> >with me, but surely a person who enjoyed it would try to make sure I
>> >enjoyed it too, so that I'd actually continue having conversations with
>> >you. But you don't try any such thing, and so I don't enjoy it, and so
>> >I herewith, yet again, discontinue the conversation.
>>
>> If you are attempting a debate
><snip>
>
>See, that's the thing, I'm not. I'm attempting a friendly conversation
>tossing out half-baked ideas and wild speculation simply because it's
>interesting and may spark more interesting thoughts.

You are refusing to define your ideas well enough for anyone to make a
meaningful comment on them, this makes it rather hard to discuss the
ideas, which is a pity as they seem interesting. There isn't anything
unfriendly about a debate, it does require actually explaining your
ideas, this might help you to work out what it is you actually think
about the issue.

>
>*David F* is the one attempting a debate, despite the fact that I've
>told him a bazillion and one times that I'm not interested in debating;
>and I'm refusing to play because, you know? really, truly, I'm actually
>not interested in debating.

So basically you aren't interested in discussing anything. Why did you
bother with your original post? You responded to a reply to a post about
a command economy with a comment on a gift economy in a manner which
implied that you considered them to be largely similar, it isn't obvious
that this is the case.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Livejournal http://brett-dunbar.livejournal.com/
Brett Paul Dunbar
To email me, use reply-to address

First off,
> All the societies where socialism has worked that I can think of are also
> theocracies. The Inca empire is the one I know the best, but ancient Egypt
> also seems to have been run this way along with others I am less sure of.

The first example that comes to my mind is the Priest-Kingdom of
Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Babylon etc.). The entire population
worked, most of them in the fields growing barley. The King was also
the High Priest, assisted by a caste of priests, essentially the
authorities. The entire harvest was property of the king, and there
was a quota that (theoretically) had to be filled. Each citizen
received a daily ration of barley from the king. So it's sort of like
100% tax rate for automatic social aid / benefits. In practice, the
quotas often could not be met due to bad harvests, natural disasters
etc. - then the king would proclaim a "general amnesty for tax
offenders" as you might call it. He had no choice but to do that,
because the official quota was based on the optimum yield, so you
can't ever balance it out with an above-quota harvest.

Anyway, enough with the past, history is bunk, let's look at the
future:
I would like to look at this matter from a slightly different angle.
Not "can socialism work" but "can capitalism work in the future?"

Firstly, I consider it impossible that a system entirely focused on
short-term profit regardless of the consequences can _ever_ develop
into a spacefaring society. That's where the so-called neo-capitalism
(as exercised by present-day corporations) can't work out: on the one
hand you're dependent on growth, on the other hand you don't want to
let the motor of growth, i.e. the work force, participate in the
benefits. Today we see this behaviour in corporations with 10-digit
annual profits firing ten thousand employees to increase their profit
from 1 billion to 1.1 billion. This _cannot_ work out in the long run,
because the corporations are ruining their own customer base.

I'm calling this "neo capitalism" because it was not always like this.
The USA for example had its Golden Age roughly from the 50s through
70s, when there was a broad middle class with houses, cars, freezers,
tvs and so forth. Today the US poverty rate is the highest of all
western/industrial nations. Thousands of people lose their homes while
The Man keeps stuffing his own pocket and proceeds to rob a pension
fund as he's about it.
As I said, it can't go on like this for long, or the entire society
will collapse.

For this reason I believe that in the long run, only an economy of
participation can function and lead us to SF-like progress. Of course,
the devil will continue to crap on the largest heap, i.e. money will
come to money. It's definitely possible that traditionally powerful
regions (like Western Europe, North America) continue to exploit
weaker regions (like Africa) as cheap source of resources. Production
however will have to be anchored in the rich countries for
protectionist reasons.

I can't say how exactly a functioning economic system will be set up,
but it will probably come down to the available work split up among
everybody, resulting in short working hours for everyone at reasonable
pay. Corporations can't be allowed to amass disproportionate profits
but must be required to split most of their profit among the
employees. It does the economy no good when ten thousand people can't
afford food for every ultra-rich who couldn't ever spend just a tenth
of his wealth if he tried.

If, for example, an increasing portion of the work is done by robots,
it would be necessary to distribute the money saved among those who
have less work due to the robot. It cannot be tolerated that the
corporation keeps the difference. The money has to go to the people so
that they can consume goods. Robots don't consume goods.

Note that I'm not saying that these fundamental changes WILL come to
pass. In fact I highly doubt it. I rather expect humanity to drown in
its own greed. But one can dream.

In article
<e4ea5c56-cbea-4da4-a0b8-dc098119b123@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
MacFraggin@googlemail.com wrote:

> Anyway, enough with the past, history is bunk, let's look at the
> future:
> I would like to look at this matter from a slightly different angle.
> Not "can socialism work" but "can capitalism work in the future?"
>
> Firstly, I consider it impossible that a system entirely focused on
> short-term profit regardless of the consequences can _ever_ develop
> into a spacefaring society. That's where the so-called neo-capitalism
> (as exercised by present-day corporations) can't work out: on the one
> hand you're dependent on growth, on the other hand you don't want to
> let the motor of growth, i.e. the work force, participate in the
> benefits. Today we see this behaviour in corporations with 10-digit
> annual profits firing ten thousand employees to increase their profit
> from 1 billion to 1.1 billion. This _cannot_ work out in the long run,
> because the corporations are ruining their own customer base.

I think you are confusing "entirely focussed on short-term profit" with
"taking actions you yourself disapprove of." Modern corporations
routinely make investments not expected to pay off in the short term.
Drug companies, for instance, invest huge amounts in developing new
drugs, knowing that it will be many year before they produce income.

You are also confusing focussing on short-term profit with rational
behavior in circumstances where individual (or firm) rationality is
suboptimal for the group. Even if your version of Henry Ford
Keynesianism (if you pay workers high salaries they will have money to
buy things so you can sell things to them and afford the high salaries)
were true--it isn't--each individual corporation will correctly believe
that its employees are a tiny part of its customer base, so the effect
can be ignored in its decisions.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now

In message
<e4ea5c56-cbea-4da4-a0b8-dc098119b123@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
MacFraggin@googlemail.com writes
>First off,
>> All the societies where socialism has worked that I can think of are also
>> theocracies. The Inca empire is the one I know the best, but ancient Egypt
>> also seems to have been run this way along with others I am less sure of.
>
>The first example that comes to my mind is the Priest-Kingdom of
>Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Babylon etc.). The entire population
>worked, most of them in the fields growing barley. The King was also
>the High Priest, assisted by a caste of priests, essentially the
>authorities. The entire harvest was property of the king, and there
>was a quota that (theoretically) had to be filled. Each citizen
>received a daily ration of barley from the king. So it's sort of like
>100% tax rate for automatic social aid / benefits. In practice, the
>quotas often could not be met due to bad harvests, natural disasters
>etc. - then the king would proclaim a "general amnesty for tax
>offenders" as you might call it. He had no choice but to do that,
>because the official quota was based on the optimum yield, so you
>can't ever balance it out with an above-quota harvest.

Actually I don't think you have that right, one of the primary function
of the state was to even out supply. The objective was to maximise
production each year and distribute based on the medium term average, in
a good year there would be a surplus which would be stored in state
granaries they would be used to supplement distribution in poor years.

>
>Anyway, enough with the past, history is bunk, let's look at the
>future:
>I would like to look at this matter from a slightly different angle.
>Not "can socialism work" but "can capitalism work in the future?"
>
>Firstly, I consider it impossible that a system entirely focused on
>short-term profit regardless of the consequences can _ever_ develop
>into a spacefaring society. That's where the so-called neo-capitalism
>(as exercised by present-day corporations) can't work out: on the one
>hand you're dependent on growth, on the other hand you don't want to
>let the motor of growth, i.e. the work force, participate in the
>benefits. Today we see this behaviour in corporations with 10-digit
>annual profits firing ten thousand employees to increase their profit
>from 1 billion to 1.1 billion. This _cannot_ work out in the long run,
>because the corporations are ruining their own customer base.

This is actually a fallacy. By cutting costs a seller can cut prices
this frees up some of the customer's resources to purchase additional
goods and find new uses for the now cheaper good increasing net demand
and causing economic expansion. This has been observed consistently for
the last few centuries, Adam Smith noted it. As the rest of your
argument is based on an empirically false basis it is all fundamentally
flawed.

>
>I'm calling this "neo capitalism" because it was not always like this.
>The USA for example had its Golden Age roughly from the 50s through
>70s, when there was a broad middle class with houses, cars, freezers,
>tvs and so forth. Today the US poverty rate is the highest of all
>western/industrial nations.
>.


Well you do call people with houses, cars and TVs poor, and in
comparison to the 1950s to 1970s equivalents the modern ones are better,
the cars are safer and more fuel efficient, the TVs are cheaper larger
lighter thinner and much more energy efficient, the freezer may well be
frost free and is more energy efficient and causes less environmental
damage when disposed of. About the only item that has not become much
cheaper is housing and even there the average quality has improved. The
poverty level is defined in relative to average incomes rather than to
an absolute level of real income, if you use a real income based measure
the picture is rather different. US real incomes at the bottom of the
scale haven't increased by much, they haven't fallen either the official
poverty line has moved up so that somewhat wealthier people are now
below the poverty line.

--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Livejournal http://brett-dunbar.livejournal.com/
Brett Paul Dunbar
To email me, use reply-to address

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:06:29 +1200 in rec.arts.sf.misc,
zeborah@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote,
>I'd be happy to clarify my thoughts for anyone interested in tossing
>about interesting ideas, but Lud! they weren't such wondrous thoughts as

I would actually like to know how you associate Wikipedia and
Distributed Proofreaders with socialism. As far as I know,
participation in both of those projects is entirely voluntary.

Brett Paul Dunbar <brett@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> In message <1ijvi76.1k8g8os8ud8cvN%zeborah@gmail.com>, Zeborah
> <zeborah@gmail.com> writes
> >Brett Paul Dunbar <brett@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >> If you are attempting a debate
> ><snip>
> >
> >See, that's the thing, I'm not. I'm attempting a friendly conversation
> >tossing out half-baked ideas and wild speculation simply because it's
> >interesting and may spark more interesting thoughts.
>
> You are refusing to define your ideas well enough for anyone to make a
> meaningful comment on them, this makes it rather hard to discuss the
> ideas, which is a pity as they seem interesting. There isn't anything
> unfriendly about a debate, it does require actually explaining your
> ideas, this might help you to work out what it is you actually think
> about the issue.

If by "the issue" you mean anything to do with the real world, I don't
give a cockroach's fart about "the issue".

> >*David F* is the one attempting a debate, despite the fact that I've
> >told him a bazillion and one times that I'm not interested in debating;
> >and I'm refusing to play because, you know? really, truly, I'm actually
> >not interested in debating.
>
> So basically you aren't interested in discussing anything.

Er, sure, apart from that being the opposite of what I said.

>Why did you
> bother with your original post?

Because I wanted to support the attempt to discuss something without
getting into "20th century socialism is evil therefore all socialism is
evil" and associated rants, and because I happened to have some thoughts
and some wonderings on the subject which I naively thought might spark
off someone else's thoughts and wonderings on the subject.

Instead it seems to have merely sparked off more "20th century socialism
is evil therefore all socialism is evil and by they way you're stupid
and ignorant" and associated rants, of which I'm kind of, you know,
BORED.

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

David Harmon <source@netcom.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:06:29 +1200 in rec.arts.sf.misc,
> zeborah@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote,
> >I'd be happy to clarify my thoughts for anyone interested in tossing
> >about interesting ideas, but Lud! they weren't such wondrous thoughts as
>
> I would actually like to know how you associate Wikipedia and
> Distributed Proofreaders with socialism. As far as I know,
> participation in both of those projects is entirely voluntary.

My dictionary says socialism is "a political and economic theory of
social organization that advocates that the means of production,
distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community
as a whole".

There may be a way in which Wikipedia and/or Distributed Proofreaders do
not fit this definition, but I'm unaware of it.

Zeborah
(Please excuse any residual irritation in my tone, I'm rushing for a
bus.)
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

David Harmon wrote:

> On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:06:29 +1200 in rec.arts.sf.misc,
> zeborah@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote,
> > I'd be happy to clarify my thoughts for anyone interested in tossing
> > about interesting ideas, but Lud! they weren't such wondrous
> > thoughts as
>
> I would actually like to know how you associate Wikipedia and
> Distributed Proofreaders with socialism. As far as I know,
> participation in both of those projects is entirely voluntary.

So is socialism.

In theory, at least.

--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
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"James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote in message
news:rp4b749607hgk14p27gtgjssq2a76ue2rp@4ax.com...
>
> Suzanne Blom believes that the Incas were nice guy
> exemplars of the free and benevolent socialism that she
> intends,

Only when I get to be god-emperor.

and is curiously untroubled by the fact that
> many of the beneficiaries of this benevolent socialism
> chose to join up with the Conquistadors for a chance to
> kill as many Incas as possible. Perhaps she feels that
> those Indians were bad guys who had not yet had their
> consciousness sufficiently elevated, and if only the
> Incas had got around to holding a few teach ins before
> the conquistadors arrived, all would have been well.
>
I rather suspect you're mistaking Aztecs for Incas. The Aztecs did indeed
have people fighting to overthrow them--They also had an empire with markets
and other capitalistic stuff the Incas didn't have.
Okay, assuming that you really do mean the Incas: Smallpox reached the
empire years before any conqusitadors. It killed the emperor and his chosen
heir. The next two most likely claimants fought a civil war. When the
Spanish arrived, they kidnapped the guy who was winning and eventually
killed him. Since they'd killed the chief guy on the other side, the
had-been-losing side welcomed the conquistadors' help in defeating the other
side, invited them to the capital for the installation of the new emperor,
and like that. For a rather short period of time. Then the new
Spanish-installed emperor escaped and, among other things, besieged the
capital. Because he was young and inexperienced, he made some bad military
decisions, Spanish reinforcements arrived, and he was forced to flee to the
jungle. In spite of the obvious lack of power that this emperor and his
successors had, tribute was still being sent to their jungle seat decades
later.

In message <1ijwjn0.ykt2ybvp4bnbN%zeborah@gmail.com>, Zeborah
<zeborah@gmail.com> writes
>Brett Paul Dunbar <brett@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>Why did you bother with your original post?
>
>Because I wanted to support the attempt to discuss something without
>getting into "20th century socialism is evil therefore all socialism is
>evil" and associated rants, and because I happened to have some
>thoughts and some wonderings on the subject which I naively thought
>might spark off someone else's thoughts and wonderings on the subject.
>
>Instead it seems to have merely sparked off more "20th century
>socialism is evil therefore all socialism is evil and by they way
>you're stupid and ignorant" and associated rants, of which I'm kind of,
>you know, BORED.

All I'm trying to establish is what you mean by socialism; the term has
been used to describe such a number of fundamentally different things
that some further explanation of which one you actually mean is kind of
important, it is kind of hard to discuss your thought on the subject if
you have failed to adequately explain what those thoughts are actually
about. By not defining the terms you leave it up to others to guess what
kind of socialism you mean, so idiots like James Donald assume you mean
a command economy backed up by a police state. And you haven't given
those who might be more sympathetic anything to work with. It is rather
difficult to have a discussion when one side refuses to say what they
actually mean.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Livejournal http://brett-dunbar.livejournal.com/
Brett Paul Dunbar
To email me, use reply-to address

> Modern corporations
> routinely make investments not expected to pay off in the short term.
> Drug companies, for instance, invest huge amounts in developing new
> drugs, knowing that it will be many year before they produce income.

Drug companies may be one thing, but even that is debatable, because
they focus rather on researching drugs that are going to bring the
biggest profit as opposed to such that will help as many people as
possible. For instance, there's a lot more research going into HIV
than into malaria, although the latter kills about a thousand times
more people than the former and finding a cure for malaria would help
a lot more people.

Besides I was primarily thinking of other branches. A couple of years
ago we had certain corporations in Germany, banking and insurance
sectors, that did _exactly_ what I wrote in my previous post, i.e.
fire ~10000 employees (each) despite profits of a billion Euros. For
this and similar cases, moderate politicians coined the term of
"locusts".

Another by-the-book example of locust capitalism could be observed in
smallish municipalities in Canada (at least I was able to observe it).
Imagine a town with a few outlying resorts and _nothing else_ within a
radius of about 50 miles. It's basically a closed economic system, all
the money flows around in circles (I've been thinking that the only
"fresh" money getting in there must be from social or retirement
benefits). Enter a major department store chain (starts with S), set
up a store there and put pressure on the prices. The local businessmen
are in trouble because they can't sell as cheap. Over the years, a
number of them go out of business, but that's not the point (yet). The
point is that the department store's profits don't stay in the region,
but are sucked off to the corporate HQ. The whole region is sucked
dry, the other stores have to close down (and of course let their
employees go). Then of course when _nobody_ has any money anymore, the
department store branch also becomes unprofitable. Not a problem for
the corporation, they just close the store down, transfer the manager
to some other place and fire the rank and file employees.
Mission accomplished, the region is ruined, but the corporation
thrives (yet).

>each individual corporation will correctly believe
> that its employees are a tiny part of its customer base, so the effect
> can be ignored in its decisions.

That is a fallacy. If _each_ individual employer thinks that way -
maximizing own profit at the cost of society's wealth - then the
_entire_ customer base get shafted, buying power decreases, economy
goes down. It's sort of like that chinese tale of a hundred wedding
guests being asked to bring a jug of wine to pour into a common
barrel, and one guest thought "if I bring water it's cheaper for me
and nobody will notice" -- the trouble was that all the guests had the
same idea and the wedding ended up with a barrel of water, and no
Jesus nearby to save the day.

The problem with corporations is that, as opposed to family-owned
companies, the decision makers don't think very far ahead because they
don't _need_ to. They'll hold their managerial position for a few
years and then advance to a different position if they are
"successful", i.e. make their section more profitable, or retire with
huge benefits. What they do is slim their department so it appears to
generate maximum profit, when in fact it is living off its substance.
The thinking seems to be that if the section collapses a day after
their leaving it, it will be the fault of their idiotic successor.
(pretty much like politicians are wont to plan their careers, too)

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:34:09 -0700 (PDT),
<MacFraggin@googlemail.com> wrote in
<news:e696a662-6849-418b-9668-15e695fd418d@27g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.misc:

[...]

> Besides I was primarily thinking of other branches. A
> couple of years ago we had certain corporations in
> Germany, banking and insurance sectors, that did
> _exactly_ what I wrote in my previous post, i.e. fire
> ~10000 employees (each) despite profits of a billion
> Euros. For this and similar cases, moderate politicians
> coined the term of "locusts".

The term -- I assume that you mean 'Heuschrecke' -- already
existed, so it wasn't truly coined; Müntefering simply gave
it a new meaning.

[...]

Brian

"James A. Donald"
> > many of the beneficiaries of this benevolent socialism
> > chose to join up with the Conquistadors for a chance to
> > kill as many Incas as possible. Perhaps she feels that
> > those Indians were bad guys who had not yet had their
> > consciousness sufficiently elevated, and if only the
> > Incas had got around to holding a few teach ins before
> > the conquistadors arrived, all would have been well.

"Suzanne Blom"
> I rather suspect you're mistaking Aztecs for Incas.

Both wars were revolutionary wars, in that both Cortez and Pizzaro
were supported by armies of rebellious subjects.

> The Aztecs did indeed
> have people fighting to overthrow them--They also had an empire with markets
> and other capitalistic stuff the Incas didn't have.
> Okay, assuming that you really do mean the Incas: Smallpox reached the
> empire years before any conqusitadors. It killed the emperor and his chosen
> heir. The next two most likely claimants fought a civil war. When the
> Spanish arrived, they kidnapped the guy who was winning

With the assistance of both his adversaries in the civil war, and the
assistance of revolutionaries seeking the defeat of the Incas.

--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:47:45 +0100, Brett Paul Dunbar
> You [Zeborah] are refusing to define your ideas well
> enough for anyone to make a meaningful comment on them

Socialists are apt to find the request that they explain
what they mean disturbing and offensive, and are
disinclined to wonder why they find it disturbing and
offensive.

--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:21:50 +1200, zeborah@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote:
> Because I wanted to support the attempt to discuss something without
> getting into "20th century socialism is evil therefore all socialism is
> evil"

We also discussed Owen's socialism (non evil, therefore failed
catastrophically), the socialism of the Pilgrim Fathers (not very evil
therefore failed catastrophically), the socialism of the Incas (evil),
the socialism of the Pharaohs (evil), and the fictional socialism of
Jack Cade.

But since you did not want to discuss any of those, we instead
attempted to ask what YOU meant by socialism, but found you strangely
reluctant to answer.


--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

Zeborah:
> My dictionary says socialism is "a political and
> economic theory of social organization that advocates
> that the means of production, distribution, and
> exchange should be owned or regulated by the community
> as a whole".

Well that surely is not the way that Wikipedia works.
All Wiki decisions are individual, not made by "the
community as a whole"

> There may be a way in which Wikipedia and/or
> Distributed Proofreaders do not fit this definition,
> but I'm unaware of it.

Ultimate authority over the Wikipedia is held by the
Wikimedia foundation, which pays for the Wiki servers
and secretively and arbitrarily empowers and disempowers
people as admins, with the power to lock or unlock
pages, the power to bar people from editing Wikipedia,
and the power to bar people from editing pages. The
admins are supposed to exercise that power as little as
possible, and the foundation makes sure that they do
exercise it as little as possible, but the power is
there, and there is not the slightest effort to exercise
it in a democratic or representative or accountable
fashion, or even in a consistent and explainable
fashion.

Decisions about the Wikipedia are made individually, not
collectively. They are usually made at the lowest
possible level, but if controversy ensues - if edit wars
ensue, the decision gets kicked upstairs to a higher
level. Sometimes people can get their desired outcome
by gaming the rules, but the rules themselves can be,
and frequently are, simply set aside from above, and
this is done sufficiently frequently as to limit the
effectiveness of gaming the rules, rather than
attempting to make rules that cannot be gamed.

Previous attempts at something like Wikipedia expired as
a result of socialist thinking - representation,
consensus, fair and consistent rules, and so on and so
forth. Hard core ultra capitalist dismissed that as a
load of crap, and Wikipedia is a demonstration that
they were right. Wikipedia is not socialism, rather it
is distributed anarchy lightly restrained by highly
centralized fascism.

But let us inquire the consequences of that definition.
Without private property rights in the means of
production to separate one man's plan from another man's
plan, there can only be one plan, one plan for all, one
plan to which all must submit. Terror follows, as mud
follows rain.

Socialists proclaim that they do not think terror will
be necessary, yet whenever terror happened, they
simultaneously denied and justified it, as Chomsky did
of the Khmer Rouge terror, and Shaw did of Stalin's
terror. Whenever real world massacres and terror
happened the socialist responses in the west was that they
opposed the terror even though it was not happening, was
vitally necessary, and that tiny handful of vermin that
were being exterminated had it coming to them.

--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald

Brett Paul Dunbar <brett@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> In message <1ijwjn0.ykt2ybvp4bnbN%zeborah@gmail.com>, Zeborah
> <zeborah@gmail.com> writes
> >Brett Paul Dunbar <brett@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >>Why did you bother with your original post?
> >
> >Because I wanted to support the attempt to discuss something without
> >getting into "20th century socialism is evil therefore all socialism is
> >evil" and associated rants, and because I happened to have some
> >thoughts and some wonderings on the subject which I naively thought
> >might spark off someone else's thoughts and wonderings on the subject.
> >
> >Instead it seems to have merely sparked off more "20th century
> >socialism is evil therefore all socialism is evil and by they way
> >you're stupid and ignorant" and associated rants, of which I'm kind of,
> >you know, BORED.
>
> All I'm trying to establish is what you mean by socialism;
<snip>

Oh. Did you consider asking? If I squint I see you might have thought
you were implying a question, but regretfully that weak implication got
rather swamped by the paragraphs lecturing me on economics and debating
technique. Well, and also (I see in retrospect) by the castigations for
my "refusing" to answer a question I had never been asked.

> By not defining the terms you leave it up to others to guess what
> kind of socialism you mean, so idiots like James Donald assume you mean
> a command economy backed up by a police state.

I have, perhaps fortunately, had little experience with the parts of
Wikipedia and Distributed Proofreaders which force people to churn out
content lest they be taken to a gulag, so hopefully in time I may be
forgiven for my failure to explicitly exclude those parts from my
discourse.


Anyway. As I said to David Harmon, I'm going pretty much by my
dictionary's definition of "a political and economic theory of social
organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution,
and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole".

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

James A. Donald <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

> Zeborah:
> > I should much rather hear someone else's opinion on
> > Suzanne's original question
>
> Question? I saw no question.

"it appears that socialism needs a feel-good propaganda arm that
capitalism already has builtin. Discuss."

It is possible, btw, to discuss what kind of propaganda socialism needs
to thrive even if one doesn't believe that socialism ought to thrive.

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

David Friedman <ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:

> I let Jimmy Wales know he was a socialist, with a suitable extract from
> the thread, and he was amused--and puzzled, as I am, by the confusion.

Belatedly: I'm curious, what extract from the thread did you use to
support the contention that (someone believes that) Jimmy Wales is a
socialist?

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

James A. Donald <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

> Zeborah:
> > My dictionary says socialism is "a political and
> > economic theory of social organization that advocates
> > that the means of production, distribution, and
> > exchange should be owned or regulated by the community
> > as a whole".
>
> Well that surely is not the way that Wikipedia works.
> All Wiki decisions are individual, not made by "the
> community as a whole"

Until we work out how to implement telepathy over the internet, I think
the decision-making system is one of the closest things possible to true
consensus. Each individual edit may be made by an individual, but the
result -- the sum not only of all edits but also of all non-edits -- is
by the community as a whole.

> > There may be a way in which Wikipedia and/or
> > Distributed Proofreaders do not fit this definition,
> > but I'm unaware of it.
>
> Ultimate authority over the Wikipedia is held by the
> Wikimedia foundation, which pays for the Wiki servers
> and secretively and arbitrarily empowers and disempowers
> people as admins, with the power to lock or unlock
> pages, the power to bar people from editing Wikipedia,
> and the power to bar people from editing pages.

I don't think it's nearly so bad as that, but if it were then it doesn't
sound so different from Stalinist Russia after all....

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

In article <e696a662-6849-418b-9668-15e695fd418d@
27g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, MacFraggin@googlemail.com says...
> > Modern corporations
> > routinely make investments not expected to pay off in the short term.
> > Drug companies, for instance, invest huge amounts in developing new
> > drugs, knowing that it will be many year before they produce income.
>
> Drug companies may be one thing, but even that is debatable, because
> they focus rather on researching drugs that are going to bring the
> biggest profit as opposed to such that will help as many people as
> possible. For instance, there's a lot more research going into HIV
> than into malaria, although the latter kills about a thousand times
> more people than the former and finding a cure for malaria would help
> a lot more people.

Maybe a bit more free enterprise in malaria-ridden places would make
them wealthier and encourage research.

But tell me this: what are the comparative resources devoted to research
by planned economic sectors, i.e. government funded research etc.?

> The problem with corporations is that, as opposed to family-owned
> companies, the decision makers don't think very far ahead because they
> don't _need_ to. They'll hold their managerial position for a few
> years and then advance to a different position if they are
> "successful", i.e. make their section more profitable, or retire with
> huge benefits. What they do is slim their department so it appears to
> generate maximum profit, when in fact it is living off its substance.
> The thinking seems to be that if the section collapses a day after
> their leaving it, it will be the fault of their idiotic successor.
> (pretty much like politicians are wont to plan their careers, too)

Certainly a bit more shareholder activism would probably help prune dead
wood at the top as well as the bottom, and improve profits even more...
But when new owners do that, the Left screams at them and calls them
asset strippers.

- Gerry Quinn

In message
<e696a662-6849-418b-9668-15e695fd418d@27g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
MacFraggin@googlemail.com writes
>> Modern corporations
>> routinely make investments not expected to pay off in the short term.
>> Drug companies, for instance, invest huge amounts in developing new
>> drugs, knowing that it will be many year before they produce income.
>
>Drug companies may be one thing, but even that is debatable, because
>they focus rather on researching drugs that are going to bring the
>biggest profit as opposed to such that will help as many people as
>possible. For instance, there's a lot more research going into HIV
>than into malaria, although the latter kills about a thousand times
>more people than the former and finding a cure for malaria would help
>a lot more people.

Pharmaceuticals companies are private businesses prepared to spend vast
amounts on things with only the chance of a long term pay off, something
you said was impossible.

>
>Besides I was primarily thinking of other branches. A couple of years
>ago we had certain corporations in Germany, banking and insurance
>sectors, that did _exactly_ what I wrote in my previous post, i.e.
>fire ~10000 employees (each) despite profits of a billion Euros. For
>this and similar cases, moderate politicians coined the term of
>"locusts".

By doing so they were then able to cut prices benefiting their customers
and thereby allowing increased consumption of other goods, creating
jobs.

>
>Another by-the-book example of locust capitalism could be observed in
>smallish municipalities in Canada (at least I was able to observe it).
>Imagine a town with a few outlying resorts and _nothing else_ within a
>radius of about 50 miles. It's basically a closed economic system, all
>the money flows around in circles (I've been thinking that the only
>"fresh" money getting in there must be from social or retirement
>benefits). Enter a major department store chain (starts with S), set
>up a store there and put pressure on the prices. The local businessmen
>are in trouble because they can't sell as cheap. Over the years, a
>number of them go out of business, but that's not the point (yet). The
>point is that the department store's profits don't stay in the region,
>but are sucked off to the corporate HQ. The whole region is sucked
>dry, the other stores have to close down (and of course let their
>employees go). Then of course when _nobody_ has any money anymore, the
>department store branch also becomes unprofitable. Not a problem for
>the corporation, they just close the store down, transfer the manager
>to some other place and fire the rank and file employees.
>Mission accomplished, the region is ruined, but the corporation
>thrives (yet).

The region's economy already had serious problems as it wasn't exporting
anything of value but was importing things. The large store was not at
fault, the lack of integration into the wider market and consequent lack
of productivity was the main problem.

The bulk of the income of the supermarket goes on things like staff
wages and paying suppliers the actual profit is a rather small fraction
of turnover. TESCO for example has about a 2% profit margin.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Livejournal http://brett-dunbar.livejournal.com/
Brett Paul Dunbar
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"James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote in message
news:ibld745o702qd2k1dh9vguqs7gq68nh0qi@4ax.com...
> "James A. Donald"
>> > many of the beneficiaries of this benevolent socialism
>> > chose to join up with the Conquistadors for a chance to
>> > kill as many Incas as possible. Perhaps she feels that
>> > those Indians were bad guys who had not yet had their
>> > consciousness sufficiently elevated, and if only the
>> > Incas had got around to holding a few teach ins before
>> > the conquistadors arrived, all would have been well.
>
> "Suzanne Blom"
>> I rather suspect you're mistaking Aztecs for Incas.
>
> Both wars were revolutionary wars, in that both Cortez and Pizzaro
> were supported by armies of rebellious subjects.
>
No.

>> The Aztecs did indeed
>> have people fighting to overthrow them--They also had an empire with
>> markets
>> and other capitalistic stuff the Incas didn't have.
>> Okay, assuming that you really do mean the Incas: Smallpox reached the
>> empire years before any conqusitadors. It killed the emperor and his
>> chosen
>> heir. The next two most likely claimants fought a civil war. When the
>> Spanish arrived, they kidnapped the guy who was winning
>
> With the assistance of both his adversaries in the civil war, and the
> assistance of revolutionaries seeking the defeat of the Incas.
>
He had only one adversary, who had nothing to do with the kidnapping. & the
Spanish had no help other than that of any gang of thugs in a peaceful
neighborhood that doesn't want trouble & hopes they will just move on if
they aren't aggravated.

"James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote in message
news:8tmd74lunc42d6c54k7ol9v4c1kfne3tep@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:21:50 +1200, zeborah@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote:
>> Because I wanted to support the attempt to discuss something without
>> getting into "20th century socialism is evil therefore all socialism is
>> evil"
>
> We also discussed Owen's socialism (non evil, therefore failed
> catastrophically), the socialism of the Pilgrim Fathers (not very evil
> therefore failed catastrophically), the socialism of the Incas (evil),
> the socialism of the Pharaohs (evil), and the fictional socialism of
> Jack Cade.
>
I specifically wrote about the Incas because they are not evil or, at least,
less evil than the founding fathers of the US. I will not ask you to
explain how the pharoahs are evil because I have never caught you telling a
historical truth; I will merely say I disagree (& recognize that I am not an
expert).

Zeborah <zeborah@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm going pretty much by my
> dictionary's definition of "a political and economic theory of social
> organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution,
> and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole".

Suppose I forget ever having come across that definition before, forget
the word "socialism", and forget the unhappy history of those
governments which have professed socialism, and instead look at these
words as if for the first time and see how well they apply to actual
governments of various sorts.

Clearly, those totalitarian states which have claimed the word do not
qualify. In these systems, there is no community, except of covert
hostility towards the government. The members of the government own and
regulate everything, while the people own and regulate nothing.

Absolute monarchies and feudal societies where the peasants own nothing
but their bellies don't qualify either.

What about capitalism? Who owns the corner shop? The chap who lives
over it. Who owns a small business? The people who run it. Who owns a
large company? All of its shareholders, and if it is publicly quoted,
anyone can have a share. If private, its owners won't own anything if
no-one wants to do business with them. Who owns my labour? Me. Who
decides prices? Everyone who comes together to buy and sell. Who buys
and sells? Everyone who wants to. How do goods get distributed? By
people finding a demand and acting to satisfy it. In short, who owns
and regulates the means of production, distribution, and exchange?
Everyone.

So it seems to me that what you have given us is a definition of
capitalism, or even libertarianism. That is the very system in which
the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned and
regulated by the community as a whole.

I am here identifying "the community as a whole" with the actual people
who make it up, since I don't see what else it can mean.

What do you think?

--
Richard Kennaway

Zeborah <zeborah@gmail.com> wrote:
> James A. Donald <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:
> > Ultimate authority over the Wikipedia is held by the
> > Wikimedia foundation, which pays for the Wiki servers
> > and secretively and arbitrarily empowers and disempowers
> > people as admins, with the power to lock or unlock
> > pages, the power to bar people from editing Wikipedia,
> > and the power to bar people from editing pages.
>
> I don't think it's nearly so bad as that, but if it were then it doesn't
> sound so different from Stalinist Russia after all....

Wikipedia cannot compel anyone to participate. It can only exclude
people from participation, who are free to do anything they like
elsewhere.

Stalinist Russia compelled everyone to participate. It excluded no-one
except to the prisons and cemeteries.

I see a very big difference.

--
Richard Kennaway

On Jul 11, 3:07 pm, "Suzanne Blom" <sueb...@execpc.com> wrote:
> "James A. Donald" <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in messagenews:8tmd74lunc42d6c54k7ol9v4c1kfne3tep@4ax .com...> On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:21:50 +1200, zebo...@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote:
> >> Because I wanted to support the attempt to discuss something without
> >> getting into "20th century socialism is evil therefore all socialism is
> >> evil"
>
> > We also discussed Owen's socialism (non evil, therefore failed
> > catastrophically), the socialism of the Pilgrim Fathers (not very evil
> > therefore failed catastrophically), the socialism of the Incas (evil),
> > the socialism of the Pharaohs (evil), and the fictional socialism of
> > Jack Cade.
>
> I specifically wrote about the Incas because they are not evil or, at least,
> less evil than the founding fathers of the US. I will not ask you to
> explain how the pharoahs are evil because I have never caught you telling a
> historical truth;

Never? I think I can pretty easily guess which of the two of you has
told a lie just now.

> I will merely say I disagree (& recognize that I am not an
> expert).

Richard Kennaway wrote:

> So it seems to me that what you have given us is a definition of
> capitalism, or even libertarianism.

The system it fits best is anarcho-socialism, though anarcho-capitalism
comes close.

It does not fit monopoly capitalism or oligarchic capitalism.

--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
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Richard Kennaway <drachirREVERSEEACHPARTTOREPLY@yawannek.gro.ku> wrote:

> Zeborah <zeborah@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm going pretty much by my
> > dictionary's definition of "a political and economic theory of social
> > organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution,
> > and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole".
>
> Suppose I forget ever having come across that definition before, forget
> the word "socialism", and forget the unhappy history of those
> governments which have professed socialism, and instead look at these
> words as if for the first time and see how well they apply to actual
> governments of various sorts.
[...]
> What about capitalism? Who owns the corner shop? The chap who lives
> over it.
[...]
>In short, who owns
> and regulates the means of production, distribution, and exchange?
> Everyone.
>
> So it seems to me that what you have given us is a definition of
> capitalism, or even libertarianism. That is the very system in which
> the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned and
> regulated by the community as a whole.
[...]
> What do you think?

I think you are confused about scope, which is probably most simply
(though not necessarily most accurately) clarified thus:

In capitalism, everyone owns something.
In socialism, everyone owns everything.


Also I think that capitalism as you describe it does not exist in this
world (and thank goodness): the government always regulates part of it.
"Thank goodness" because there is no such thing as utopia; the mob, even
guided by the invisible hand, can be as tyrannical as any dictator.
Government, properly constituted, is a check on the excesses of the
people, just as the people are a check on the excesses of government. I
like being part of a monarchy so that the Queen (or her representative
the Governor-General) can be an additional check on the excesses of the
government (at least potentially, even if the power is rarely
exercised). And for that matter, the people have always had, and not
infrequently exercised, the ability to act as a check on the excesses of
monarchy.

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html

Richard Kennaway <drachirREVERSEEACHPARTTOREPLY@yawannek.gro.ku> wrote:

> Zeborah <zeborah@gmail.com> wrote:
> > James A. Donald <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:
> > > Ultimate authority over the Wikipedia is held by the
> > > Wikimedia foundation, which pays for the Wiki servers
> > > and secretively and arbitrarily empowers and disempowers
> > > people as admins, with the power to lock or unlock
> > > pages, the power to bar people from editing Wikipedia,
> > > and the power to bar people from editing pages.
> >
> > I don't think it's nearly so bad as that, but if it were then it doesn't
> > sound so different from Stalinist Russia after all....
>
>