Why Socialism (and Communism) Fails and why our society is being destroyed

1. People almost always work in what its perceived to be their own self-interest, even if they are not consciously aware of it.

2. 'The collective' generally refers to a false concept. A nation-state is not a natural collective, but an artificial one. Natural collectives (like race-cultures, families, and local communities) are benefited when their constituent individual members are benefited, and since all are benefited by freedom and trade, natural collectives will naturally benefit in the same manner.

3. Morality and self-interest are not mutually exclusive. You've naively assumed that everyone must follow Altruism. But what justification have you for following Altruism? It provides neither the most happy nor the most prosperous existence, and it is odds with man's nature. Why would anyone chose a moral code which fundamentally defines survival as evil. That is to say why would anyone chose a code wherein ultimately their own death is good?

'Underproduction' is a foolish term for use here.

When the threat of invasion is low then people will be unwilling to pay large amounts for protection. When the threat of invasion is high people will be very willing to pay high rates for protection. The demand -- in this case the public's preceived requirement for immediate protection -- drives supply.

You have to work hard and make your own money, just like everyone else. You don't get to steal just because you think you're providing a 'greater good' or a 'public good'.

Another silly and predictable argument.

1. Look around you. The rich have taken over -- through the institution of government. They own the police, the military, everything. So this is a state of existence we are currently trying to escape, not one that we are in danger of falling into.

2. Private defence agencies, just like those for border defence, would obviously be on call to assist you with defending your property rights. In all likelihood you would live in an enclave of some sort where the suburb paid private security, just like a mall or university does. And that private security would be part of a larger firm with back-up ready to be sent out if there are problems.

Undercutting does not work. It never has and never will in a free market.

If you sell potatoes at half the lowest price I can sell them, because you are a big mean potateo company, then guess what I do? I buy your potateos at your low price, and I ship them down the road to the next town, where I sell them! Until you go bankrupt.

This has actually happened a number of times in history.

Preditor pricing is an absolute MYTH and has been throughly debunked.

 

You can have voluntary socialist/communist communities under liberty, but you can't have liberty under socialism.

Thus the socialists have no legitimate reason to oppose us, unless of course what they actually want -- but will not admit -- is to control us.

 

You're just going in circles (but then socialists always do). They get three net benefits.

1. The cost of a good education is reduced to between $1000 and $3000 per year per child -- a price most lower class people can afford, and a price which is sufficiently low that charities will happily pitch in.

2. They are not subject to inflation tax, or income tax, which is a real savings tax of currently around 15%. This puts more money in their pockets.

3. The children may choose a partial schooling, with part time attendance, or a special type of schooling which helps them to quickly get out of poverty. Once the child has acquired a skillset of his own then he is no longer forced to be dependent on his impoverished family and may take years out of his education to work to pay his way.

So everything costs less, especially education. Poor people have more money. And appropriate customized education services may be purchased which specifically aim at helping the lower class individual.

How did I get $1000 - $3000?

On the market upper-end intellectuals are paid about the same amount regardless of their field. That rate is around $30 per hour. It doesn't matter if you're a software engineer, a lawyer, or a doctor, that is the wage rate the intellectual worker is paid when his occupation is subject to sufficient competition.

So if you have a class size of 30, and must pay the teacher $30 per hour, thats $1 per child per hour. Double that to include all the overhead -- buildings, textbooks etc.
$2 per hour per child, 6 hours a day is $12 per day.
$12 per day, 5 days per week is $60 per week.
$60 per week, 48 weeks a year, is $2880 per year.

That's the rate you would expect to pay for a GOOD full-time education under free market capitalism, years 4 - 10.

But of course class sizes could be much larger, as with universities, and study may be part time, ie supplemented with work.

Is it any surprise that the figures work so well? Free-market capitalism is the highest form of economic democracy. Everyone votes in realtime when they engage in economic transactions. Vote with your feet and vote with your wallet.

Well then again you fail utterly to understand economics.

The demand for good cheap education IS staggering. The second this market is opened up people like me will start education businesses and we'll have lines of instant customers, because the public education system fails that badly to deliver any sort of objectively acceptable standard of education.

Because feeding you is actually more expensive than teaching you.

Consider an average growing child costs around $10 per day to feed. Thats $70 per week, $3640 per year. More than the education (particularly a part time education).

Relative poverty is not something we wish to abolish. Only a marxist would be foolish enough to assert that we need to equalize unequals. You have the right to work a minimum wage job and I have the right to not work one.

Or pay their way, if they can't afford full time education.

Heres what I support: a voluntary system in which prices are continually and systematically reduced by market competition and increasing productivity, in which consumer goods and services are not just available to those with political connections, but also to the common man.

Heres what you support: a system of child slavery paid for by extortion and run by the same people who are currently committing genocide in the middle east.

Go figure.

Public education is of little value on the market. If you go to your first job interview with nothing but a public education under your belt then unless its walmart you're not going to get the job. I wouldn't hire you and neither would anyone else. This is because the quality of the certificate has been destroyed by the lack of objective standards in the school system. School leavers barely know how to read and write. And this isn't restricted to the US, or Au. Its occured/occuring everywhere there is compulsory public education.

Intelligence is a genetic trait. Some 'self made' millionares jump the divide, but chances are they're a rare case of some recessives in their bloodline popping up.

You need only look at the extended families of poor people to notice a distinct pattern. None can handle money, all have below average intelligence and none of them care enough to do anything about it. Commonly referred to as trailer trash and the like.

I'm not going to punish them for being crap at virtually everything, but you seem to want to.

Well your concern is then misguided.

People are kept on the bottom of the fishbowl because they cannot get a better job, and cannot save enough money to move up in the world.

This is due to a lack of wage competition, due to a lack of general competition. And they cannot save money because they cannot manage money, but also because their bank account is a leaky bucket, where the government just takes what it pleases through inflation.

If you want to help the poor then you should support the abolition of trade union laws, and the fed. This would open up the market place to higher competition driving wages up and prices down, whilst allowing people to save money to buy better educations and new homes.

If sitting in an inner city school dodging shank attacks and trading drugs under the table is learning then knock me dead.

What you currently have is a system in which virtually no real education takes place, but it wastes 12 years of a person's life ANYWAY. 12 years they could be learning a trade or getting ahead in life. You force them to do nothing, be paid nothing.

The problem of central planning is not going to be fixed with more central planning. What are you, stupid?

Your system doesn't work, and nothing you would try to fix it will work either. And lord knows they've been trying for 50 years to fix this system and every year it just gets worse, in every country. Why don't you stop with the insanity? People who do not want to be educated should not be forced into an education system which does not want to educate them!

Again, this is fucking typical of a socialist. You don't understand markets.

Most of that stupidly high amount of GDP is being wasted. In the market most of it would be delivered to where it is needed.

And your argument just outright collapses when, again, you consider democracy. If greater than 50% disagree on paying that much for the welfare state then why haven't they voted it out the door?

 

Yes. Self ownership is the most fundamental right.

Liberty is far more important than having food on the table. A slave has food on the table, but that food may be revoked from him at any time, without his consent. Slaves cannot own things, they are things.

Further the direction of your question suggests that people will be hungry under liberty, but on the contrary all the empirical evidence points to exactly the opposite. People are hungry under slavery, serfdom, socialism, communism, and corruption. People are well fed and wealthy under freedom.

Its not a case of either/or, your life simply depends on your liberty. If you are free then your life is in your hands. If you are enslaved then your life is in the hands of those who enslaved you. Which, I have to say, are unlikely to be nice people.

 

This has absolutely nothing to do with liberty.

It is the nature of reality that everyone must make choices which involve foregoing one thing in order to have another. New shoes instead of a new shirt, a new boat instead of a new house, a vacation instead of a new TV.

There is no such thing as sacrificing liberty. You can only sacrifice your material possessions. Either you have liberty, or you do not. It is not a choice, you cannot choose to be a slave. This is because liberty is exactly the right to choose, rather than have someone choose for you.

1. Murder is not a big problem in the world. A very small percentage of the population of the earth is capable of murder, and most of them either find their way into organized crime or the government.

2. Your neighbour is preventing you from killing him. If he feels you are dangerous then he will probably setup some defenses or move away.

3. If you kill your neighbour under the current system, there is a reasonable chance you will never be caught. The number of unsolved murders is quite high.

4. Because violent crime is so problematic to those living in the areas where it occurs, it is very likely that local residents will voluntary put money toward solving local murders in order to protect themselves from attack. You can see this occurring under the current system with private detectives and local community groups tracking pedophiles.

5. If it worries you that you may be murdered for your money, then put a clause in your will that in the event of a suspicious death x% of your net wealth should got to company X for the purpose of bringing your killer to justice.

But ultimately this is little more than a scare tactic used by statists to attempt to justify government. The truth is violent crime is high in some areas and low in others, and very little goes toward changing that. Not the death penalty, not larger prisons, not more police, not higher walls.

If you want to risk living in a violent area then thats your choice. Otherwise move to the country or suburbia, or an enclave and live in a safer environment. The choice is yours under freedom.

Liberty is not defined by the consequences of one's actions. It is best defined in terms of where your rights end and where another's begin. Autonomy, not power.

The 'consequence' to follow used to be a lot harsher before government started writing laws. The common law is a lot fairer when it comes to dealing with property crime and violent crime.

To put it bluntly, we live in a much more violent system because of the lack of justice provided by the government courts and police officials. If these were abolished tomorrow and the common law prevailed then overall assault and theft would begin immediately to trend down.

Liberty is defined by what people cannot do to you and your property. Its a set of negative rights.

With respect to the 'rouge enforcement' you speak of, there are a number of competing theories on the matter. Libertarians are split over minarchism vs anarcho-capitalism. I personally think that market competition will achieve a peaceful and relatively just balance of power due to the prevalence of common law.

Read The Libertarian Manifesto, by Murry Rothbard.

Audiobook:
First chapter: http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/audiobooks/rothbard/foranewliberty/1.mp3

Full book: http://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=87

 

That is true. But you are not choosing to become incarcerated. You are choosing to violate another's rights, the consequence of which is the loss of some of your own rights.

What I meant was you can't sell yourself into slavery. There is no voluntary transaction you can make, or action you can undertake, in the framework of a voluntary society which will result in a valid loss of freedom at the hands of another.

If you sign a contract of employment for a period of six months and decide to quit after two weeks, there no way for the employer to keep you for six months. He must let you leave even if you signed your rights away -- this is because your rights are inalienable.

To where? Another government territory?

If I were living in a country with an actively violent state which was physically threatening me then I would definitely leave. I honestly would have left the US a month ago if I lived there.

Well its a philosophical issue. As with all aspects of reality no one decides, it is more about who finds the truth first.

You could ask me who decides on the laws of mathematics or the constants of physics or the laws of logic and reason. The answer is these, like libertarian theory, are a result of the study of nature and reality, and are not up to anyone's whims.

Of course this is not to say there isn't considerable debate in the process of discovering the truth. Many factions and schools of thought exist, and new arguments are put forward everyday. There is no certainty that we will select the correct understanding when we found a society, there is only the opportunity to do so.

No one is very worried we will get it wrong though, for the same reason no one is very worried a simple science experiment will go awry because we have yet to fully agree on the nature of wave-particles; Some aspects of the theory have been so thoroughly debated and empirically verified that they are beyond reasonable doubt. In this respect they have become philosophic law -- like scientific, physical, or natural law.

In practical terms the founder of a libertarian society would probably decide which school of thought to follow, but in general the school of thought itself is discovered from nature, and not a product of arbitrary decision.

There is a natural distribution of capability and therefore of wealth in any human population. You could say that nature strongly favours the more capable. And thank god it does, else we'd still be up in the trees.

What freedom gives us is the opportunity to become whatever we please. Whether that be a homeless crack addict or a multi-millionaire, its entirely up to you. No one will take your belongings provided you take no one else's. It's really that simple.

 

Thats what government leads to you dolt. Look around you.

No. Anarcho-capitalism is capitalism without RULERS, not capitalism without RULES. In fact capitalism without rules is utterly impossible. The term capitalism or free-market or voluntarism defines the rules of behaviour between humans. It is infact the rule of law we seek.

How many people in the 20th century died due to government? Millions.
How many people in the 20th century died due to businesses? Barely any.

You'd rather have empires than trade?

 

That's the jist of it, yes.