Hey, we want to be part of the hate!
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 02:14
VIEWED: 18566
PAGE 9 of 23
Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I’m not confident that there’s not a causation. If you put the economy squarely in the hands of the government then you run an increased risk of totalitarianism.
Theoretically, it's supposed to be in the hands of the people, anyways.
I'm fairly certain that you cannot have an extremely oppressive regime where the wealth/economy isn't concentrated in relatively few hands, be that government or its rich supporters. Any system loses stability when the gap between rich and poor becomes too large. If the government doesn't have direct control of the economy, if it is corrupt, the rich and powerful will use the government as their tool, just like a corrupt socialist government would abuse its powers.
The effort would be a bit smaller for a corrupt socialist government, it's true, but we have never really seen one that wasn't corrupt from the start, either.
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Quote:If you put the government squarely in the hands of the economy then you run an increased risk of fascism.
If you put the economy squarely in the hands of the government then you run an increased risk of totalitarianism.
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Let's party like its 1929.
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Quote:And that’s the reason why totalitarian rulers love socialism. Total rule and propaganda in one neat package. Everyone from Hitler to Stalin to Saddam Hussein used some form of it.
Originally posted by AgentRouka:Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I’m not confident that there’s not a causation. If you put the economy squarely in the hands of the government then you run an increased risk of totalitarianism.
Theoretically, it's supposed to be in the hands of the people, anyways.
And it’s interesting the way many people don’t have any problem recognizing the dangers implicit in a capitalist economy where the money is concentrated in a small group of people, but then turn around and love the idea of socialism which by definition concentrates the wealth in small group of people. Ultimately, the one huge advantage for the preservation of a free state that capitalism has over socialism is that the government is a third party which can be used to control the excesses of the wealthy. No such safety net exists in socialism.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:... but rarely is.
the government is a third party which can be used to control the excesses of the wealthy.
---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.
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I have no problem with the idea of Socialism, but I don't believe it is an independently sustainable form of Government. Without Capitalist societies to leach off, Socialist societies quickly become impoverished due to lack of economic incentive. The economic growth of Capitalist countries is the only thing that keeps money flowing into Socialist countries. Without the market Capitalism provides Socialism would quickly fail.
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Quote:You’re welcome to live in that fantasy, but you live in a free country because the US government legislates rules to the economy all the time. Some would argue too much – some argue not enough, but at the end of the day, the difference between a free state and a totalitarian state is not just the ruthlessness of the government, but also the regulation or degree of control applied to the economy.
Originally posted by SignyM:Quote:... but rarely is.
the government is a third party which can be used to control the excesses of the wealthy.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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"I have no problem with the idea of Socialism, but I don't believe it is an independently sustainable form of Government. ... Without the market Capitalism provides Socialism would quickly fail."
I'm not sure I agree. Does Sweden need the US ? Denmark ? Iceland ? Remember, the US had a big hand in bringing the world economy down, which would have gone along quite nicely without.
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Silence is consent.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
"I have no problem with the idea of Socialism, but I don't believe it is an independently sustainable form of Government. ... Without the market Capitalism provides Socialism would quickly fail."
I'm not sure I agree. Does Sweden need the US ? Denmark ? Iceland ? Remember, the US had a big hand in bringing the world economy down, which would have gone along quite nicely without.
***************************************************************
Silence is consent.
It looks to me like the biggest trading partners of the Countries you mention are mostly Capitalist countries (Germany, Britain, USA). The USA has also subsidised them by providing for their defense for the last 60 years. Without US protection they would have had to spend a much larger proportion of their GDP on defense and would have probably ended up speaking Russian anyway.
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Iceland, Sweden and Denmark don't have defense forces ? I think they would be very surpised to hear that !
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Silence is consent.
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Politics is a small subject, so I want to keep this short in case River wants to read my above post.
Finn, I tried that tack and got headbutted, there was no escape. And you're right about socialist states. It's the basic principle of universal cooperation that makes it possible. The hippie crowd doesn't stop to think "cooperate with what, exactly"
Kathy, yeah, I think there are a lot, Botha was never a dictator. Neither was Ian Smith. Ian Smith, incidentally, was hailed by his populous even to his dying day as their rightful duly elected leader. When Mugabe gave orders to his own most loyal guard to arrest Smith, they refused. Pol Pot, OTOH, was an avowed socialist, as was Noriega, I will have to look these others up, but you also omitted people that you knew were socialists like Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il. I'm not here to argue about the validity of state socialism, I was just sacrificing so others wouldn't feel so bad.
Quote:
Does Sweden need the US ? Denmark ? Iceland ?
All capitalist nations, one of those three intensely so, generally considered the second most capitalist nation on earth after Switzerland. That's why Iceland won't join the EU, it doesn't want in on the one currency, because it is the new banking center of Europe.
But as for socialism, I'm not going to bother looking up the list, because it's too much time, I'm hazarding a guess there are a few more socialists, but that's not the point. Look down the list of massive genocides in history and you will see a lot of state socialism. Esp. lately in Africa, though not exclusively. It's probably the biggest violent killer to come along since western religion. Maybe it's a part of western religion. But certainly, the biggest killer probably outside of socialism is our own govt., which is a sanctimonious self appointed elite. Lately, it hasn't been so bad, a lot of wars and death, but nothing like it was in its more socialist days (WWII) oh, and that was a snark.
To say that I don't like socialism is an understatement, I'm not here to argue it. I'm not a great fan of capitalism either. I think that's a hobson's choice. But given the two...
Still, I'd like to think there's a third choice.
The flaw in capitalism is in its name: Capital. It rewards extant wealth, and always will. It should have been replaced by Industrialism when the industrial revolution struck. The stock market was invented by the banking industry so that capitalism would not fall to industrialism, because it could leverage a takeover with use of its ownership of the gold, which now had no value, unless they kept people in power who would assure that it did.
The flaw with socialism is also in the name, which is short for social engineering. The core idea is that govt. (known for its benevolence, peacefulness and competence) would engineer all aspects of society from the top down. The hallmark of "cooperation rather than competition" was cooperation with that top down plan, and the elimination of competing points of view.
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