Socialism

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deathflower wrote:

The checks and balances simply do not work very well. You have corporate interests on both sides. Corporations pit Democrats vs Republicans, Divide and conquer. You usually lose. You can't usually get the different political parties with different vested interest to work together against the corporation, the corporations can however influence politicians on both side in a united front for their vested interested. It result in the inability or unwillingness of those responsible to detect, expose, and remedy those failures. You have a vicious cycle and check and balance result in an inability to break the cycle.

You are correct, and this is essentially the root of the problem. Hopefully, the current generation is beginning to see the truth of this, and willing to take the time and effort to figure out some solutions and then make them happen. There's got to be a better way that we haven't thought of yet. Finding something that will be difficult to corrupt and transparent enough to monitor will be necessary.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Even if all government were destroyed, not even a day later a million governments would rise to take its place. Human nature abhors a power vacuum. In practical terms, anarchy means the brutal governance of warlords, each with their own fort and their own slaves, unchecked by larger regional or national governments.

Facepalm. DAFAQ (underlined)? Do you even know what anarchy as a social/political system is? What you described is something straight out of a Mad Max movie, get a grip and dont talk about things you have no understanding of.

Think of communism and then remove the state and goverment, thats the simple way to understand it. And no, you dont need guns to adopt a system like communism, its just that you lack the vision to see how it can work. Or the improbability of it working (due to how deep roots capitalism has in every society plus the vices of human nature) makes you thing its absurd.

Anarchy is NOT chaos, in anarchist communities there is just NO NEED for laws, no need for goverment no need for conflict. Everyone knows his place and offers whatever he can to his fellow anarchists. There are no hierachies, and no need for currency. People dont strive for economical profits but for the well being of their society. People care for civic life and politics, people are free of their greed due to education playing a very important role, without it (education) and experience anarchy is not even possible to adopt. In anarchy there is no religion, cause religion is a form of governance that prays on people's ignorance and feelings. There is a sense of mutuality between the people. Since there is no currency and no economical goals the very notion of them does not exist. Private property is rejected while in the same time personal property is respected. Means of production belong to the people equally. People's needs are met within the society, from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. The anarchist society is basically build upon freedom, cooperation, mutuality, direct democracy, high values and solid education.

In real life anarchy as of now is only feasible in small societies, were capital, production, population etc are in small scales. The bigger a society gets the harder is to maintain anarchy, because its harder to communicate everyones needs and speak his mind in a way that is true to the ideology and values. In large scales its just impractical, but by far the most utopian scenario for any society with only requirement a collectively higher state of mind.

For now we are stuck with what works in practice and centuries of brainwashing, utopia (anarchy) is hard to reach but not impossible (though improbable)

@deathflower : there is validity and maturity on the things you wrote.

I've already countered most of Regulator's arguments in either this thread or my "5 principles" link, but I want to focus on one.

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Regulator wrote:

Since there is no currency and no economical goals the very notion of them does not exist.

You are under the fatal delusion that money is the primary focus of economics. The real focus of economics, the true currency, is human time. Products, both physical and intellectual, are created by human work. Money is a medium for the exchange of such products, which means: moving vast amounts of money around is quite literally the transference of peoples' lives' work from one set of hands to another.

You can't just say there are no economic goals. A single farmer, with no society and no money, practices economics: he can use the land to plant corn, or to plant beans, and there is an opportunity cost for his choice.

As long as there is a man on this planet: there will always be governance, even if it is the last man on Earth crafting rules for himself; there will always be economics, even if it is the last man on Earth deciding how to spend his time; there will always be self-interest, even if it is the last man on Earth looking out for himself. These things are absolute; you can never destroy them.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I feel what we need is government which stands against this corporate power rather than being bought by, or otherwise allying with, it.

I wish for the government to meddle into the economy the least as possible, but fighting corporativism, monopolies & cartels, are things that need to be done, else we will end up with a few corporations owning everything there is. Corporativism is the enemy, not Capitalism & free market.

But, remind me, which candidate did the US leftists vote for? Oh, yeah, corporate shill Hillary Clinton. -_-

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Regulator wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Even if all government were destroyed, not even a day later a million governments would rise to take its place. Human nature abhors a power vacuum. In practical terms, anarchy means the brutal governance of warlords, each with their own fort and their own slaves, unchecked by larger regional or national governments.

Facepalm. DAFAQ (underlined)? Do you even know what anarchy as a social/political system is? What you described is something straight out of a Mad Max movie, get a grip and dont talk about things you have no understanding of.

Think of communism and then remove the state and goverment, thats the simple way to understand it. And no, you dont need guns to adopt a system like communism, its just that you lack the vision to see how it can work. Or the improbability of it working (due to how deep roots capitalism has in every society plus the vices of human nature) makes you thing its absurd.

Anarchy is NOT chaos, in anarchist communities there is just NO NEED for laws, no need for goverment no need for conflict. Everyone knows his place and offers whatever he can to his fellow anarchists. There are no hierachies, and no need for currency. People dont strive for economical profits but for the well being of their society.

Set Utopien rules, without anybody enforcing it, makes absolutly sense. It´s just incredibly naiv to think of a ideal world. Crime alway´s happens even with laws.
What stop´s me from takeing your sheeit?
As Long a Society has commen intrest like safty,wealth there will be some sort of gouverment.
It seem´s like u don´t understand why you have to pay taxes, or why Money exist´s.
I promis you, it´s gona get realy difficulty if you want to sell your chicken to somebody that only own´s cow´s.
Did you watch Stefan Molenaux to much ;D?? he is a retard

I don't feel you're being fair to Mr. Molyneux. I've been watching his stuff recently and it's mostly good. If you could link some particular idiocy that might be helpful.

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Pwnzors87 wrote:

Did you watch Stefan Molenaux to much ;D?? he is a retard

Not an argument.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I don't feel you're being fair to Mr. Molyneux. I've been watching his stuff recently and it's mostly good. If you could link some particular idiocy that might be helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN5OjzEfQmI Taxpayer´s want to shoot him!!! A men has to leave his wife!! Politician´s are a...holes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkAWbggenPk What a suprise, gouverment recieving Money is bad, but if my tribe get´s it, it´s justified. They were such great politician´s in the soviet Union.

There is enough material about him, i posted that thunderfoot guy because he is decent.
Whenever a retard get´s so much popularity and attension, someone has to ask himself, why is that the case? Just curious. Divide and conquer evrywere, even in this alt-right there are a bunch of faggot´s. What a coincidenc that this milo guy is so popular, hmmmm.

I am watching the videos you linked currently. Not done yet, but I think it's clear he genuinely believes in some crazy shit and is willing to ostracize dissenters, and that's bad. I still stand by my original verdict though - the vast majority of his content is solid. I've watched hours of him without getting to anything disagreeable; in part this is because he generates a shitload of content, so the batshit can occupy only a small fraction and still be significant.

By the way, Milo is awesome.

Okay, I think I've watched enough.

Anarcho-capitalism is a contradiction in terms; under anarchy, capitalism is impossible.

What anarchists falsely assume is that, if people of peace decide not to create a government, that they will be safe from criminals - those who would steal from them, enslave them, or kill them (all of which have a profit motive in a lawless society). While it is true that a single man of peace could defend himself somewhat adequately against a single man of crime, assuming equal access to weaponry (which is why women are programmed at the genetic level to be attracted to violent showoffs instead of milquetoasts), the anarchist falsely assumes that the peaceful men will decide if governments will exist. No, the men of crime will make them first, creating a gang to which no single man could hope for victory. Government is, above all else, a weapon intended to be wielded against people - whether it's against the criminal or against the peaceful is based upon who wields it. If the men of peace refuse to wield government in some kind of misguided pacifism, they shall inevitably be stricken down by nefarious men without such inhibitions.

At a certain point, the threat of legitimate, peace-promoting government threatens perpetrators of force and fraud to such a degree that these behaviors are no longer in a potential criminal's self-interest; the risk is too great. At this point, self-interest is channeled in the proper way. The invisible hand of Adam Smith that capitalists love so much is born a savage, but is civilized given the appropriate adjustments to how choices are weighed.

Because it is by the restricting of people's criminal choices that the peace-lover gains freedom of choice, it is impossible to gain voluntary payment for the services of government. One doesn't pay another person for the "service" of having their freedom to steal stripped away. Taxation is the only dependable means of funding government.

I agree with Molyneux that taxation is theft; where I disagree is his exaggerating its severity to death by gunshot. Having a government means supporting its police with a wage (in terms of food, drink, etc in a moneyless economy), so either part-time police are forced to tax themselves on a volunteer basis, or the community must be forced to provide for their welfare through taxation. The thing Molyneux neglected here is that this isn't a choice in a vacuum; you are either taxed - legally stolen from - in a system with the rule of law, or you have no police and are victimized by the first gang of thugs that wanders about. There's no magically getting around the cost caused by criminal assholes; either you pay for insurance, or you suffer the full effects uninsured. That is the moral choice involved in taxation, and as someone who wants the best for Stefan Molyneux, I'd much rather the state mug him for a few dollars of protection money each year than have him quite literally shot by some random marauder.

Laws cost money to investigate and enforce, these costs require taxation, and taxation is a cost upon the people. But that's why we have a democracy, so that the people have some measure of control over who's getting the protection money and what they do with it; essentially, so that taxation is a voluntary economic transaction for the majority, and theft only for the minority. Overall, the measure of a law is whether its social benefit is not only greater than zero, but greater than the cost imposed on the people through taxation. Good laws give people services they want in a cost-effective manner; democractic republics under capitalism (not corporatism) perform well at giving the majority services they want in a manner cost-effective for that majority. Freedom isn't free; the necessary legal infrastructure to even implement capitalism requires a certain degree of legalized theft to build and maintain.