Poll: Winston Churchill on Socialism

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
41

Well you asked for evidence…:

But now you don’t like it because it’s counter to your point?

Why do people have so much trouble stepping outside of their political indoctrination about Totalitarianism being Socialism/Communism just because it claimed to be so? Does nobody understand politics or something? It’s full of white lies and half truths with good intentions…

I don’t think I claimed that did I? I was just casually dropping one of the many incentives to work that aren’t profit-related… and yes, needing food to live is another… I think I even clarified my point that material exists in and is essential to all economies - did you miss that bit?

In nature, good genetics are rewarded by living longer or whatever so you reproduce more. Bad genetics die. We humans in humanworld have decided that not only is such death terrible on some wishy-washy emotional or moral level, keeping the weak alive increases what economists call “comparative advantage”. Rather than holding the species back from dominating the world (we succeeded in that one long ago), we have learned to utilise the weak such that they can contribute to a better society than we would have if only the strong survived. There is good reason why humans have stayed on top of the world so decisively, and if I had to sum it up in one word it would be cooperation.

Didn’t I cover the whole stealing thing with you? Fiat money is just another way to maximise cooperation within capitalist constraints. I don’t support it because trying to moderate Capitalism is a futile endeavour due to its very essence in class antagonism.

More accurately it is not money I am against, but the use of money as capital. Specifically privately owned capital. Herein lies that very essence of class antagonism. Money used as money is fine, trade away to your heart’s content.

That’s another thing I clarified: how money should not be conflated with material. I guess I need to also clarify that I meant money as capital.

Money is a two sided coin (best metaphor I’ve ever come up with :stuck_out_tongue: ).

On one hand (to nicely mix the metaphor lol) it is intended to be exchangeable for anything and often is, especially in the freest markets.
On the other hand, if you don’t have it you are cut off from absolutely everything, especially in fully developed economies (with privatisation everywhere) as in the freest markets.

All the money in the economy could buy everything in it, but people tend not to require ownership of literally everything in an economy. They make do with a tiny fraction of all the money in the economy. This isn’t a problem unless the fraction is too small to afford everything you need. You are cut off from absolutely everything you cannot afford. The solution is said to be as simple as working harder, though often people who can’t afford everything they need are working as hard as they can. This can come about because all the money is flowing away from such people despite any hard work…

The important thing to realise about a free market economy is that money must flow away from such workers.

Without the growth incentive, free market economies grind to a halt. When everything is voluntary, Capitalists must be kept wanting to invest. As soon as they don’t, growth stops, investments are withdrawn and we get a bust. We get all this shit about “there’s no money” - yes there is(!) It’s just that the people with it don’t want to spend it… thus periodic collapse is inherent to free market Capitalism.

It’s got nothing to do with “the big bad government” stepping in. Everyone is supposed to step into a free market, that’s what makes it work. Capitalists just don’t like it when it’s an official state power because it actually has power over them, god forbid. Same with trade unions, basically symbolising a group of workers actually having power to have their requirements met. Except in free markets, capitalists just up their prices and nothing gets sorted, they are just “forced” to make it worse for themselves :frowning: poor things.

Unemployment keeps workers scared of losing their jobs, forcing them to compete harder for deals that do them no justice in case an unemployed worker replaces them. It serves a very useful function for a free market. If the market does not pander to capitalists, they will not set up business that will hire workers. Until that is done, workers have no jobs to work in - they very much come last in the whole thing. Government can provide them with a safe secure job, or at least give them money to live off when there are no jobs available. It does the exact opposite of making it illegal for people to work on their own terms - that’s the job of capitalists.

I think you read that one wrong, mate.

When I say “the fact that gross inequality is not the problem in itself” I mean inequality is NOT the problem in itself. It’s just ignorant Capitalism advocates who think that lefties think equality is a problem in itself.

Well it may shock you to learn that I live just as humble an existence as you, and I even actively avoid material possessions beyond the computer and musical equipment I have, along with minimal essentials like a change of clothes. I too realise that 100 years ago no one could dream of such wealth. I really, truly, honestly do not want anymore - just as you.

And yet I realise that the capitalist system sucks, from a philosophical, economical and psychological point of view, as well as through the fact it doesn’t work for so many other people. I don’t have any material to gain (though there will be material to gain for others), I’m just being analytical about the whole thing and thinking beyond the ideological dogma that so many people seem to be mesmerised by…
Though I do have something to gain with regard to the little involvement I have in the working world. When I am in it, I see clearly what’s wrong with it.

Animal nature has no central planning, and it organises itself from the top down with alphas and all that (dunno where you got bottom up from). It is human central planning that has enabled us to dominate the world - otherwise we would just be another animal species struggling against the rest to survive. And yet it was nature that gave rise to the human ability to centrally plan. It was cooperation that got us here.

Under the freest market, the invention of the car putting people who built carriages out of their job would have involved a sudden complete loss of means to live. This means either crime, or starvation and potential death. That’s not cool. If there are no Capitalists hiring, they have literally nothing, no matter how skilled they were at making carriages and doing whatever else, they suddenly become unentitled to life because the market said so. It’s not like your average worker has enough to set up their own business, and even if they did and somehow found a tiny niche in a market where we suffer from too much choice, so many start-ups fail very fast.

Animal nature is a nasty and horrible fate that humans have naturally surpassed. Human nature is (potentially) humane, potentially planning things such that nature is much less nasty and horrible. I’m not advocating the centralised Totalitarian version of this that has falsely called itself Communism and Socialism. I’m advocating Communism and Socialism as another natural way to escape the unplanned animal nature that Capitalism is so fond of - in favour of humane nature.

42

I prefer Capitalism and less Government. Let the dice roll, the game is nt over til you die. Being in poverty is only awful if you have known something better. If you don’t know it exists then you don’t need it and can’t want it. many a wealthy person has fallen, many a poor person has risen. Let each be individual and not forced to serve another. Socialism Communism are just other words for slavery to those who have the reigns. Ever see a Socialist leader or Communist leader living in poverty like the least wealthiest of their people? Nope. They live in comfort and do not wait in lines. It all sounds great on paper but when you add humans it sucks. Capitalism is natural for the human species. The leaders of the opposing systems prove that.

43

Thanks for the ignorance, Kris.
Well parroted.

And for your information, there are examples of leaders of Socialist revolutions who haven’t lived more highly than other workers. As for the Totalitarian regimes, which you incorrectly called Socialist or Communist because that’s what you’ve been told rather than actually read about (clearly), they do tend to live more highly than those they rule. But then nobody’s arguing in favour of Totalitarianism, making your valuable contribution irrelevant.

44

I’m going to explain this again… In the first post I described two people sharing their innovations through a “deal,” such as rent. You say that everybody should be able to make these deals and be better off… That is anti communism and pro capitalism. Such a transaction means that an individual owns the means of production. Do you not get it?

You are being really naive when saying that communism is individualistic… The government has to force individuals to do what you want. If I want to do a transaction and the government wants to stop me… that is not individualistic. The fact is, socialism can and does exist in capitalist societies… look at the Amish… However, capitalism can’t exist in a socialist soceity because you wont allow it… even if people want to do it because it makes them better off. You want to force people to do something that not all of them want to do. You can gather up your friends from occupy wall-street, buy a piece of land, and live in your socialist society. Nobody is going to stop you. Why do you have to try and force smart people in your society? I know you want the smart people to produce nice material things for you to use in your socialist society… but you can’t force them… smart people work better in free societies.

45

Oh please all leaders have gotten percs and a better lifestyle than those they lead. Any cases of leaders being equal are so few and far between they are moot to the history of humanity. I don’t read just one side of any situation i study as many sides as possible. You have an ideal and that is fine but, it just does not work once it leaves the paper stage.

46

Read this, then get back to me on how all leaders have gotten a better lifestyle than those they lead.

I’m talking about Communist/Socialist revolutionaries, not Totalitarian dictators. I’m aware that plenty of them and leaders of mixed economies etc. have gotten percs and a better lifestyle than those they lead, but a leader can’t even pretend that his revolution is Socialist/Communist unless they themselves are one of the same class of workers as everyone else.

I say it again, all these Totalitarian State dictatorships that have been going around claiming to be Communist/Socialist ARE NOT! By definition, Socialism has a worker led and operated State, and Communism has no State at all! Learn about what you’re saying before you parrot off some Right Wing ideological misinformation!!

Apparently you don’t read at all… - at best you’ve only read one side of the situation. I suggest you read the other side before you blurt out bullshit.

Don’t be so bloody patronising.

Especially when you’re still under the common illusion that “Communism only works on paper because we’ve seen what happens in practice” - no we have not!
We’ve seen some failed attempts to establish it that may have begun with good intentions, in completely different circumstances - often basically Feudal conditions - to anything we have today. Today, Capitalism is being fought against across the Western world.

You probably didn’t even realise all the international protesting that has been going on all over Europe as well as what is going on even in America.

Attitudes are changing, communications are far beyond what could even be imagined 100 years ago, computing abilities for planning are through the roof, none of the old reasons why Communism/Socialism never really got to show its head are valid anymore. Capitalist counter revolution will be at an all time low, work technologies, communications, planning capabilities are now up to standard - able to hold vast populations together where before they could not.

Yet weak Capitalist advocates still reel off the same tired misinformed clichés as they always did, to pretend like Communism in today’s world be just like it was before - in the hope that others are equally unread and ignorant, for the sake of upholding the dying ideal of Capitalism that proves over and over again to be a complete scam - to this day. In reality we see no democracy or hope for today’s mixed (mostly Capitalist) economy, and in reality we see everything pathing the way for either ACTUAL Socialism/Communism, or something very similar. And by that I do NOT mean State-led Totalitarian dictatorships - I cannot stress this enough.

So who is more entitled to say “You have an ideal and that is fine but, it just does not work once it leaves the paper stage” here?

47

Your socialism can exist in a free market. You would be able to round up your buddies, buy a piece of land and share the fruits of your labor there. All we are asking is don’t try and take other people’s things and justify why your socialist state should have them. Just don’t force people to be part of your system.

Is that too much to ask?

48

We are all forced into economic systems, regardless of the particular ideology. And taking other people’s things is what capitalism is all about. You seem to dislike socialism for some of the very same things which are integral to your preferred system (capitalism). Perhaps it’s true that what we hate most in others is what we hate most in ourselves.

49

Capitalism protects property rights… thus taking other people’s things is illegal.

50

No way. It is illegal under certain conditions, that is all. And that’s not even a trait unique to capitalism.

Property rights can exist alongside socialist economic policies.

51

What silhouette was saying is that the property which is also a means of production should be taken from individuals and given to the state, since owning the means of production is anti-communism. To that I just said that nobody is stopping him from owning a piece of land and sharing the fruits of his labor with people that believe in his system. Look at the Amish for example… Both systems can coexist like that. People outside of his community can live in capitalism, and people within his community can live in socialism.

52

sorry, i didn’t mean to start building a strawman.

ultimately, i don’t think the means of production should be handed entirely over to the state, but i do think the state should be given legal regulatory authority over the marketplace. balance is key, but those who reject socialism out of hand make acheiving that balance impossible because they turn socialism into this great scary monster that exists solely to take away everyone’s stuff, which it isn’t.

53

No problem.

The thing is. I don’t hate socialism. In fact I think the Amish are admirable and good natured people. And I think its great that people want to support each other… I just don’t think that this should be done through the state. I tend to think that letting people from the government appropriate public funds leaves a lot of room for corruption… And I hate corruption more than anything. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily thing corrupt politicians are bad people. It is just that when people are placed in a position where they have to appropriate public funds they tend to rationalize solutions that end up benefiting them. If you asked any corrupt politician they would tell you that they are not corrupt. Oh and I also hate hypocrisy. I hate seeing rich Hollywood celebrities and people like Michael Moore speak against the very system that they are profiteering from. If they believe in socialism, let them become socialists. (like the Amish have) Why should I have to live under their system. We can all do our own thing as long as we are not harming each other.

And I guess my point is… People are charitable and caring. They want to help causes that they believe in by donating money. I just don’t think that this should be done through the government. Why force people who are against the war pay for the war, or people who are against a welfare state pay for a welfare state, or people who are fundamentalists pay for stem cell research, or people who are atheist pay for church subsidies?

54

Absolutely.

Capitalist advocates like to conveniently forget that when, for example, America was colonised, the immigrants didn’t “earn” the land they invaded through some free, fair system of trade combined with hard work - NO - they physically took it from the natives by brutal force and violent, murderous bloodshed!
The same happened in African colonies, and colonialisation is something Africans have been passionately fighting against to this day.

Their system relies on force and fraud in order to become established, and a military/police/law court monopoly on force and fraud must continue to exist in order to maintain it (the class antagonism) - over everyone, whether we like it or not. (Or we can move to another country that actively imposes a similar or different oppression on us, hooray for freedom).

And then when progressive thinkers come along and challenge this, suddenly THEY are the ones advocating stealing, and they are disgraceful if they ever advocate doing so by through force…

Unbelievable.

It may come as a shock for a Capitalist advocate to take a history lesson and actually learn something like the fact that causing things to become publically owned is nothing more than reverting things to how they were before private ownership took over everyone’s world.

Also true.

Capitalism is a process of “legally” taking other people’s things - and not just when setting it up, it’s a condition of its very operation. This legal process is innocently called “profiting”.

In terms of material, physical produce, without property laws, produce is everyone’s: something gets produced and it’s there for whoever wants or needs it. They are the literal physical “profits” of production, but this is not where the “legal” stealing comes in. That becomes possible when we try to quantify the literal profits, for example using money.
There is no objective monetary value for anything. Today’s monetary values are based around a kind of average amount that people tend to be willing to part with in order to exchange their money for particular commodities (with many other factors coming into play also). Since it is all so vague and abstract, there are no objective grounds upon which to challenge the exchange value of anything. Power games sort this one out.

Someone with a lot of wealth can afford to lose a lot more than someone with little wealth. A free system just causes this wealth gap to widen, because the rich can simply afford to be more tight fisted. An employer and his employees may produce plenty of commodities for sale, but do they get anything like an equal share of what they make as a team? Nowhere near. Even if working times and difficulty of work was all similar - not a chance. Power games mean those with the wealth, who make the worker contracts, who “own” the means of production - they have all the sway. The worker has a massive pool of unemployed people to battle against, as well as other workers, in order to stay in the running of those who are entitled to a means to live - they have much more to lose.

Thus the employer and employee can come to a nice innocent voluntary agreement on how to share the wealth of the business they are both required to work in in order for it to run sufficiently, and it “somehow” still comes out massively in favour of the employer. I guess employees just like having much less wealth, right? Well, workers like me sometimes are fine having very little, but when everyone is collectively pushed to the limit of a liveable life - since money must flow away from us and towards employers in order to maintain the growth incentive for Capitalism to continue to exist… that goes too far. Not ok.

Thus sums up the constant and inherent process of capitalist stealing. And as long as this is declared to be ok by law, it remains legal and we find ourselves in an economy that keeps fucking up time and time again “and no one can figure out why(!)”

55

Stop conveniently ignoring the issue and answer the above question.

56

Svetty.

I am getting to you, I’ve not been ignoring you. There’s just so much to cover with you, and I have other things to do in my life than post on here. Be patient.

Oh the pain.

The Amish are some ascetic reactionary religious group that suffers from a small gene pool. They are not free of costs from the world around them, and I don’t just mean the massive fee they would be required to pay in order to “buy” the necessary amount of land that it takes in order to be a small self-sufficient community. They are affected by the capitalist world around them, they are not free.
If your vision of Socialism or Communism is “the Amish” then no wonder you’re so scared of it!

If Socialism magically appeared tomorrow, with everyone somehow being ok with it, we wouldn’t suddenly be transported back into some rural agricultural scene from the past, nor would all our towns and cities become grey and unmaintained. Many things would be much the same. Maybe with a lot less adverts and brandnames trying to shout louder than the others - with, instead, information in known outlets for you to consult if you felt the need to. No call centres and fliers, nor pointless employees to smile and greet you at the door of some shop you just want to look around, or pushy salesmen trying to get you to buy stuff you don’t want etc. etc…

Businesses would all still be there, though perhaps streamlined in number to get rid of the huge massive surplus of the same thing under a different name, some of which exists in the world, ready for consumption, but just doesn’t sell for whatever reason. Any surplus could go straight to charity or whatever, depends what workers vote to do about it.

And yet despite the streamlining of businesses to an appropriate, yet still rich amount, people wouldn’t be losing jobs but GAINING jobs. People wouldn’t have to work so long, giving them more time to train and get education to freely go from job to job without the pressure to compete against the unemployed. They would still need the adequate skills to start a skilled job (though they’d have time and money to earn them), and there would still be benefits organised (by workers) for attracting workers to jobs that needed more help.

You STILL have it in your head that the Socialist State is comprised of “them corrupt ones over there”, no. It is comprised of you, your family and friends and all other workers.

If you are not pulling your weight, you can be damn sure that others would notice and confront you - just as a manager in a Capitalist-run business would. Managers would still exist, and everyone would still want a high amount of work from you - there would be no room for slackers. But why would you want to slack when the work pace was an appropriate level with all the extra help from people formerly in pointless roles to try and get you to shop “here” rather than “there” or giving financial advice on where to invest, or formerly being unemployed. And you would actually have a share of public ownership of your workplace and its property instead of none at all! There is SO much inefficiency in a Capitalist system!!!

Seriously, get all this misinformation out of your head! Think in terms of the real, current world of today.

57

Land has value. In order to own land one must create and give up sufficient value. You can’t just take things… Also, I’m sure the Amish would accept you if you show that you can be useful… You wouldn’t have to pay for the land in such a case.

If you don’t like the Amish, than I am afraid you are going to have to work, creating value, and save up so you can buy your own piece of land. Stealing it just wouldn’t be right…

That way you can live in socialism and I can live in capitalism. And best of all, I would be free. Everybody wins?

58

one of the unfortunate facts of living in a free society is that you don’t get to stop paying for the government just because you don’t like everything it does. you still benefit in very fundamental ways from the govt’s active hand in the market (for example, anytime you collect a paycheck or go shopping for some new thing you want), and so you are obligated to contribute to its continued existence.

it is the state, not the free market, that enables you to have property rights.

and i’m with Silhouette on the Amish thing.

59

Svetty, I do understand what you mean - no need to repeat yourself. In your Capitalism-only mindset the guy who thought of the innovation has private ownership of it and can rent it as he pleases. In your nicely unrealistic example, he is 20 pieces of cotton better off and the other guy is 80 pieces of cotton better off. Lovely stuff.

Now, with Socialism or Communism, he would not be forced to do anything, but the poor guy would have no incentive to do anything but share his innovation with other workers… meaning every single worker can adopt the innovation and be 100 pieces of cotton better off. All of them. But why would he want to do that when he can rent his one privately claimed tool to one other guy and be 20 pieces of cotton off with the other guy 80 pieces of cotton better off?

Even if he did mass produce the tool under Capitalism, he would only choose to rent or sell it to however many people it was profitable to rent or sell it to, at a price that only some would be able to afford - still meaning not everyone is 100 pieces of cotton better off by a long shot.
But in reality, if all cotton fields were initially being fully harvested, the extra 100 pieces of cotton that the inventor would be able to pick would have to be from the plots of others. Others would not be able to pick as much cotton, and would have to turn to the inventor to make up their numbers. The inventor would rent his tool to the others so they could make up their numbers in exchange for picking some extra cotton for the inventor from the plots of others - with the help of this fancy new tool. Obviously this would continue until some people were left without any plot at all, and therefore having nothing to sell to the inventor and having nowhere left to pick cotton.

If the cotton fields were not initially being fully harvested, with the above pattern we can easily see how they would easily come to be fully harvested. And the more tools the inventor produces, the faster and more decisively this would occur. We see the inventor doing nothing and amassing vast amounts of cotton for himself, with others having none and dying from cotton starvation or whatever. Though what the unfortunate COULD do is offer to work even harder for the inventor to replace his other workers, harvesting even more cotton for him, and so we get a really “efficiently” run cotton industry with workers working as hard as they can to stay in work, harvesting all the cotton in the shortest possible time, with the smallest amount of workers achieving this, and our inventor doing nothing but “be cotton rich”.

Adding in some more reality, other people would attempt to come up with similar or better tools, winning our cotton society an oligopoly instead of a monopoly - still with many unused workers, forced into starvation.
More reality still, and our inventors are selling their cotton on the market, except most of the workers have died or have no wage in order to buy any cotton. With our new oligarchy, our inventors might employee these unfortunates in advertising or customer service, so the other inventors who actually have money are encouraged to buy from particular inventors instead of others - they all do this, some get more popular pushing others out of business, but at least more jobs are created to entitle some extra unfortunates with a minimal wage to life on - all competing against one another to not be in the pool of the dying unemployed.

We have 100% of cotton harvest at maximum efficiency, lots of incentive to come up with a better tool, massive surplus for some and nothing for others, with minimal wage for some… I’m sorry - what part of this is good?

With Socialism/Communism, nobody died, nobody was rewarded with decadence, everyone got twice as much as before and the entire cotton fields weren’t harvested out of balance and eventually existence (killing our Capitalist society out of their surplus and excess exploitation).

The tool never was inherently private property, the respect earned, the satisfaction of nationwide increased richess, and creative reward in itself were. There was no monetary “transaction” that required private property in order to complete - he just told people about something he thought of/created… it never was Capitalist to share it for the benefit of everyone.

Am I wasting my time, asking you to question your assumptions like a philosopher is supposed to be able to do?

60

What part of the “amish thing” are you with Silhouette on? You don’t have to pay income tax if you don’t have income. You don’t have to pay sales tax if you don’t buy things from the market.