The Violence Of Socialist Security

Originally posted by ANOK
Social security has nothing to do with socialism. The definition you posted is the statest version of socialism. Social programs supported by the government is not socialism.

The real definition of socialism is the 'workers ownership of the means of production', as in opposition to the 'private ownership of the means of production', capitalism. It has nothing to do with government hand outs. Socialism does not require state, or government, and Anarchism has traditionally been socialist because its the only way the people can be truly free.

You claim to be anti-state and government, yet you buy into the very system that creates them and enslaves the majority in the worker-wage system, capitalism. You buy into the lies they tell you, capitalism is not freedom, it is control and exploitation.

There is nothing more violent than capitalism. Capitalism requires authoritative organization in order to protect capital. Along with capitalism came police and courts, and the state system. Private ownership of the means of production was very difficult until the establishment of the police and courts. Without it there can be no private ownership of the means of production, as the workers would have no incentive to not just take what they needed, as apposed to being coerced to be a wage slave.

You're not against socialism because you know what it is, but because you have been conditioned to think its everything BUT what it actually is. And don't try to tell me you do because you've already proven you don't.

I listened to that Chomsky lecture and I'll give my critique.

First off, the guy is arguing with idiot college kids, so he's going to run circles around them. His arguments in response to what the kid is proposing are brilliant and seductive.

What Chomsky himself is ignoring or glossing over in his responses is how his proposed solutions rectify the problems of violence that he sees arising from a "capitalist" system. Of course, Chomsky isn't even arguing against capitalism, he is arguing against fascism, which is the control of government by industrialists.

When he says labor finally got "rights" - he's implicitly saying that industrialists were preventing labor from having "rights" in the first place, but he doesn't explain how or why this was so.

In reality, the labor riots of the early 20th century were caused by government interventions, not by industrialists. There was also a lot of rioting by labor unions to exclude groups of workers based on race.

Government intervened to break up labor strikes that it felt interfered with government's operations, and those interventions by government directly incited violence. Further, some of the riots were caused by wage reductions which were completely unavoidable from the standpoint of the corporate owners. When revenues drop, a company is forced to either cut wages or lay off employees. But what Chomsky fails to address is WHY there was a contraction of wages in the first place. The wage contraction was caused by government interventions in the economy that created a "boom" period, which inevitably was followed by a "bust".

Had government not intervened in the economy in the first place, laborers would not have had to experience a wage contraction at all, and hence never would have been motivated to strike.

Chomsky is only looking at the problems superficially, not at the actual root causes.

I'd love to debate him.

I am not an idiot college kid and I would not let him get away with his superficial arguments.

Originally posted by Flatfish

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by Flatfish

 

Since government will not be able to borrow enough from foreign countries to make up the difference, it will leave the government with one of two options - either declare bankruptcy or print the difference.

edit on 10-2-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)

I think you left out an option which is to raise taxes on the ultra wealthy as a means of recovering some of the wealth they have stolen off the backs of labor and the average taxpayer. Same thing with S.S., there should be no income level which is exempt from the tax, all that does is to enable them to steal from the poor.

The "ultra wealthy" are not sitting on trillions of dollars of uninvested capital.

For example, if the government took all of Bill Gate's wealth, Microsoft would go out of business.

Bill Gate's has a lot of cash, but the VAST majority of his wealth is tied up in assets that he's using to create jobs and prosperity.

Further, income taxes only tax newly acquired wealth, they don't touch the wealth that Bill already has. Even if we raised income taxes to 100% - Bill Gates would continue to be a billionaire. However, such taxes would prevent anyone else from ever becoming a billionaire.

Further, taxes assume that the government knows how to spend Bill Gates' money more effectively than Bill Gates does. This is utterly preposterous considering the vast amount of jobs and real productivity increases Bill Gates has given society through his investments.

Originally posted by mnemeth1

Originally posted by Flatfish

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by Flatfish

 

Since government will not be able to borrow enough from foreign countries to make up the difference, it will leave the government with one of two options - either declare bankruptcy or print the difference.

edit on 10-2-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)

I think you left out an option which is to raise taxes on the ultra wealthy as a means of recovering some of the wealth they have stolen off the backs of labor and the average taxpayer. Same thing with S.S., there should be no income level which is exempt from the tax, all that does is to enable them to steal from the poor.

The "ultra wealthy" are not sitting on trillions of dollars of uninvested capital.

For example, if the government took all of Bill Gate's wealth, Microsoft would go out of business.

Bill Gate's has a lot of cash, but the VAST majority of his wealth is tied up in assets that he's using to create jobs and prosperity.

Further, income taxes only tax newly acquired wealth, they don't touch the wealth that Bill already has. Even if we raised income taxes to 100% - Bill Gates would continue to be a billionaire. However, such taxes would prevent anyone else from ever becoming a billionaire.

Further, taxes assume that the government knows how to spend Bill Gates' money more effectively than Bill Gates does. This is utterly preposterous considering the vast amount of jobs and real productivity increases Bill Gates has given society through his investments.

NEWS FLASH!!! "U.S. Companies Sitting On $2 Trillion In Liquid Assets" www.npr.org...
NEWS FLASH!!! "U.S. Firms Build Up Record Cash Piles" online.wsj.com...
NEWS FLASH!!! "Companies holding 8.4 trillion on the sidelines" www.webcogito.com...

Taxes don't assume that government knows how to spend anyone else's money better, only that government is willing to spend money where others won't.

reply to post by Flatfish


Yes in total there is a ton of cash sitting on the sidelines, mainly because of regime uncertainty.

Business owners are unsure about what the government is going to do in terms of:

1. printing money

2. setting interest rates

3. healthcare mandates

4. labor regulations

When there is this much uncertainty about what government will do, capital holders will sit on the sidelines.

However, your aggregate numbers mean nothing.

If there are 10,000,000 small business owners each with 100,000 dollars of excess capital, that is 1,000,000,000,000 dollars, but each person holding the money certainly isn't as rich as Bill Gates. So aggregates mean nothing.

You can raise taxes on the ultra wealthy all day long and not touch any of that capital.

reply to post by mnemeth1


Well who knows, maybe that's something to be considered when we go about fixing the system. Maybe we should at least debate the merits of a "asset based" taxing system. All I'm saying is that you can't take the money from where it ISN"T, it has to come from where it IS.

Originally posted by Flatfish
reply to post by mnemeth1

 

Well who knows, maybe that's something to be considered when we go about fixing the system. Maybe we should at least debate the merits of a "asset based" taxing system. All I'm saying is that you can't take the money from where it ISN"T, it has to come from where it IS.

Why do you feel the need to take money by violent force?

Don't you think the capital holders will spend it on their own when they see new business opportunities arise?

Originally posted by mnemeth1

Originally posted by Flatfish
reply to post by mnemeth1

 

Well who knows, maybe that's something to be considered when we go about fixing the system. Maybe we should at least debate the merits of a "asset based" taxing system. All I'm saying is that you can't take the money from where it ISN"T, it has to come from where it IS.

Why do you feel the need to take money by violent force?

Don't you think the capital holders will spend it on their own when they see new business opportunities arise?

No I don't. Apparently, the only business opportunities they are interested in are overseas. These opportunities are in countries that have a complete lack of environmental protections and no system in place to insure worker and/or product safety which enables them to steal even more than they were allowed to steal here in America.

Any extra cash spent in America will be to purchase yet another new car, vacation home, yacht and/or private jet and if we're real nice, they might offer us a job as their housekeeper. No wait, they already gave that job to an illegal immigrant because american labor just cost too damn much.

Originally posted by Flatfish
No I don't. Apparently, the only business opportunities they are interested in are overseas. These opportunities are in countries that have a complete lack of environmental protections and no system in place to insure worker and/or product safety which enables them to steal even more than they were allowed to steal here in America.

Any extra cash spent in America will be to purchase yet another new car, vacation home, yacht and/or private jet and if we're real nice, they might offer us a job as their housekeeper. No wait, they already gave that job to an illegal immigrant because american labor just cost too damn much.

So you are saying government will spend the money more efficiently than private citizens?

Are you familiar with the economic history of the Soviet Union?

How about the economic history of Fascist Italy?

Do you think building more bridges to no where, building more tanks, bombs, carriers, and other weapons will improve the economy?

Do you think government does anything more efficiently than the private sector?

Should the government produce shoes, t-shirts, wrist watches, umbrellas, post-it notes, etc.. etc.. ?

How would the government know what to produce?

Why are business owners interested in overseas investments to begin with - is our own government driving them overseas by its actions perhaps?

Originally posted by mnemeth1
No, that is what government does.

Government is part of the capitalist state system, part of the protection of capital wealth and privilege. Without government there is nothing stopping the workers from rejecting your system and running it for themselves. This has been the on going class struggle for years.

Government uses violence to impose a fiat currency which it can then inflate at will.

Again the government is not working for itself it is working for the capitalist system. Those high up in government are capitalists, or work for the interests of, just look at their history.

Capitalists don't use violence to protect their capital, government uses violence to enforce a monetary monopoly.

Again you blame everything on government, not those who control the government.

You have an odd definition of violence.

The police don't use violence? War is not violent? Slavery wasn't violent?

But government handouts are?

It is through the monetary monopoly imposed by government that fascists then use to fund their crony corporations.

LOL you don't even realise that 'crony corporations' are nothing but capitalist ways of protecting their capital using government handouts. It's social security for capitalists.

Talking about hand outs, how much did the capitalists get to bail them out?

Those with the most money will always influence and control government to their own benefit - but that has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with fascism.

Wrong! Fascism has nothing to do with influencing government. Fascism is a Capitalist, nationalistic, system that uses extreme centralized authority and Darwinism (survival of the fittest) to control its population.

Fascism is a political system, capitalism and socialism are economic systems.

Capitalism is the system that allows the few to control the many. As long as there is private ownership of the means of production the people will never be truly free, we will always be at the mercy of the private owner as they control our access to needed resources. They control resources through artificial scarcity, this includes food, homes, 'jobs'. They keep us in constant competition with each other for the very basics of life that should be the right of every human being.

I don't want your system, and the only way you can make me accept your system is though violent authority.
Can't you see your contradictions?

Originally posted by mnemeth1

Originally posted by Open_Minded Skeptic

Originally posted by Flatfish
the biggest problem plaguing our S.S. program in your statement regarding the fact that it has been run like a Ponzi scheme.

You are absolutely correct. There is nothing wrong with the Social Security system in theory, and nothing wrong with it in practice that could not have been avoided by the simple act of the US gov't (as implemented by both parties through the years) not stealing from it for decades.

There is everything wrong with socialist security in theory.

The use of violence against the innocent is immoral.

Anything that is good for someone does not have to be forced upon them with weapons.

You may as well be condemning "civilization" which depends upon the threat of violence to sustain itself.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
What Chomsky himself is ignoring or glossing over in his responses is how his proposed solutions rectify the problems of violence that he sees arising from a "capitalist" system. Of course, Chomsky isn't even arguing against capitalism, he is arguing against fascism, which is the control of government by industrialists.

Wrong. So so wrong! You really need to learn what capitalism is, not what the capitalists have told you it is.

Industrialists, are they not capitalists lol?

When he says labor finally got "rights" - he's implicitly saying that industrialists were preventing labor from having "rights" in the first place, but he doesn't explain how or why this was so.

When the industrial revolution took place and people were forced into factories to work there were no worker rights. No minimum wage, no minimum work hours, no days off, no limit on workers age, no safety concerns.

So NO the workers had no rights, and all the rights we now do have came about from the LABOUR MOVEMENT.

You should really know the history of the working class before you start making claims about what is a better system for us.

www.schoolshistory.org.uk...

In reality, the labor riots of the early 20th century were caused by government interventions, not by industrialists. There was also a lot of rioting by labor unions to exclude groups of workers based on race.

The government operates to protect capital wealth and privilege. Of course the capitalists don't do it themselves, they do nothing themselves they pay others to do it for them.

(I don't know about the union rioting because of race that is an American issue, not a labour issue)

Government intervened to break up labor strikes that it felt interfered with government's operations, and those interventions by government directly incited violence. Further, some of the riots were caused by wage reductions which were completely unavoidable from the standpoint of the corporate owners. When revenues drop, a company is forced to either cut wages or lay off employees. But what Chomsky fails to address is WHY there was a contraction of wages in the first place. The wage contraction was caused by government interventions in the economy that created a "boom" period, which inevitably was followed by a "bust".

On behalf of the capitalists! Corporate owners = capitalists. In a socialist system wages would rise substantially, so yes workers are going to be upset when capitalists lower wages to increase their profits.

Had government not intervened in the economy in the first place, laborers would not have had to experience a wage contraction at all, and hence never would have been motivated to strike.

That's just BS. Without government capitalists wouldn't pay you anything, you would be shackled and forced to work for nothing. The only reason that doesn't happen is because we made it illegal, and government protects us from that. History proves this.

Chomsky is only looking at the problems superficially, not at the actual root causes.

I'd love to debate him.

That is just one vid mate he can't address everything in detail. I'd love to see you debate him, that would be hilarious. You would lose bad, seriously.

I am not an idiot college kid and I would not let him get away with his superficial arguments.

Is that right? First you need to get your definitions in order, you are very confused mate.

reply to post by Blarneystoner


That is ridiculous.

People do not need to threaten each other with violence in order for society to prosper.

In fact it is the use of violence that is going to destroy civilization and return us to the stone age.

reply to post by ANOK


I know exactly what capitalism is.

Apparently you and Chomsky are confused about it.

You are conflating free market capitalism with Italian fascism.

Here's the entire Doctrine of Fascism by Mussolini, free online:
www.worldfuturefund.org...

Read it, then get back to me.

Here's the definition of free market capitalism:
en.wikipedia.org...

A free-market economy is an economy where all markets within it are unregulated by any parties other than those players in the market. In its purest form the government plays a neutral role in its administration and legislation of economic activity, neither limiting it (by regulating industries or protecting them from internal/external market pressures) nor actively promoting it (by owning economic interests or offering subsidies to businesses or R&D). Although an economy in this most radical form has never existed, efforts to liberalise an economy or make it "more free" attempt to limit such government intervention.

The theory holds that within an ideal free market, property rights are voluntarily exchanged at a price arranged solely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers. By definition, buyers and sellers do not coerce each other, in the sense that they obtain each other's property rights without the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or fraud, nor are they coerced by a third party (such as by government via transfer payments)[1] and they engage in trade simply because they both consent and believe that what they are getting is worth more than or as much as what they give up. Price is the result of buying and selling decisions en masse as described by the theory of supply and demand.

Notice it explicitly calls for anarchy.

You can't have a free market with government pointing guns at people, taking their property by force.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by ANOK

 

I know exactly what capitalism is.

Apparently you and Chomsky are confused about it.

You are conflating free market capitalism with Italian fascism.

edit on 10-2-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)

Huh?

'Free market capitalism' is a misnomer. You are again just buying into the capitalist propaganda. You can have free markets without capitalism.

There is nothing free about the private ownership of the means of production, 'free markets' is not the true definition of capitalism. In capitalism the markets are controlled by those who own the means of production.

You seem to latch on to the word 'FREE' and think it's firstly true, and secondly it's the definition of capitalism. It is neither. Capitalism allows markets, but they're not free.

Italian fascism lol? I already explained they are not exclusive systems they work together. Capitalists prefer fascism because it is more protection for them, less chance the workers will revolt. Fascism is not an economic system, so again you're wrong.

College kid or not you are confused, probably a self educated internet student eh?

Just look up any, non-biased, definition of capitalism and private ownership of the means of production is always the main definition...

cap·i·tal·ism
   /ˈkæpɪtlˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled[kap-i-tl-iz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

dictionary.reference.com...

In common usage capitalism refers to an economic system where the means of production are privately owned and operated, and where the investment of capital, and production, distribution, income, and prices are determined not by government (as in a planned economy) but through the operation of a market where all decisions regarding transfer of money, goods (including capital goods), and services are voluntary. In capitalism, the means of production are generally operated for profit.

eng.anarchopedia.org...

Notice it explicitly calls for anarchy.

You can't have a free market with government pointing guns at people, taking their property by force.

That is the definition of 'FREE MARKETS' not capitalism. I have already explained capitalism will not work without its government state system. Private ownership of the means of production is why we got the state system we have in the first place.

Socialism allows free markets!

en.wikipedia.org...

And true Anarchism is socialist...

freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice... Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality, Bakunin the father of Anarchism

Anarchism is the no-government system of socialism. Peter Kropotkin Anarchism, p. 46

After all we are socialists as the social-democrats, the socialists, the communists, and the I.W.W. are all Socialists. The difference -- the fundamental one -- between us and all the other is that they are authoritarian while we are libertarian; they believe in a State or Government of their own; we believe in no State or Government." [Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti, p. 274]

Libertarian Socialism is a term essentially synonymous with the word "Anarchism". Anarchy, strictly meaning "without rulers", leads one to wonder what sort of system would exist in place of one without state or capitalist masters... the answer being a radically democratic society while preserving the maximal amount of individual liberty and freedom possible.

Libertarian Socialism recognizes that the concept of "property" (specifically, the means of production, factories, land used for profit, rented space) is theft and that in a truly libertarian society, the individual would be free of exploitation caused by the concentration of all means of wealth-making into the hands of an elite minority of capitalists.

flag.blackened.net...

reply to post by ANOK


Apparently you are still confused.

In order to have "free markets" there can be no State.

Pure free market capitalism is necessarily anarchist in nature.

For the State to exist in the first place, it must create publicly owned goods. Free market capitalism does not allow for the public ownership of goods. Resources are either available for homesteading or they are not. Nothing can be "publicly" owned.

In order to have public ownership, there must be a State to claim it represents "the public".

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by ANOK

 

Apparently you are still confused.

In order to have "free markets" there can be no State.

What? Did you even read anything I said?

I have just finished explaining to you why capitalism is not free markets because of its government and state system.

Pure free market capitalism is necessarily anarchist in nature.

Rubbish! Again I have just finished explaining why capitalism is NOT free markets.

For the State to exist in the first place, it must create publicly owned goods. Free market capitalism does not allow for the public ownership of goods. Resources are either available for homesteading or they are not. Nothing can be "publicly" owned.

Again rubbish! The state is the police, the military, the schools, anything that is used to allow one class of people to control another.

Socialism is not 'publicly owned' either. Not in the sense you want to think it is. Again you are just using the statist definition and keep ignoring the true definition.

In order to have public ownership, there must be a State to claim it represents "the public".

Again that is not how socialism works. The workers represent themselves in socialism. No state is needed in order to run an economy, as long as no one part of the population has a monopoly on that economy and can use it to exploit for personal gain, like capitalists do due to their ownership and control of the means to produce goods for our needs.

You are still confusing political systems with economic systems.

reply to post by ANOK


You are not reading what I said.

The definition of free market capitalism is clear.

No State.

No Violence.

You can chose to ignore the blatantly clear definition I posted from wiki if you like, but that does not make you correct in your views.

You do understand I am an anarchist, right?

I love the mental gymnastics and absurd leaps used to get around mnemeth's absolute truth.

There is a gun to my head and that isnt just, righteous, good, polite or even remotely tolerable.

Anyone claiming otherwise is an absolute tyrant.

There is no getting around that. No justifying that. No excusing that. It is absolute.

I'm fine with letting all you "little eichmans" have your scheme. Just put your gun away and dont expect me to participate. Unfortunately for any pyramid to sustain itself it has to keep sucking in more funding relentlessly. Which will inevitably have the gun right back out of the holster.

In that light the whole thing must come down. There cant be a group in the scam and a group outside of the scam. Certainly not when one is government sanctioned and the other not. That encourages the violence. The beatings. The theft. The imprisonment.

What sense does it make to take a guy who refuses to pay say 5,000 a year into a scam and lock him up at an expense of 30,000 a year? Think about that for a minute. Your government hates you and knows your largely too stupid/dependent to see it.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by Blarneystoner

 

That is ridiculous.

People do not need to threaten each other with violence in order for society to prosper.

In fact it is the use of violence that is going to destroy civilization and return us to the stone age.

No Sir... Civilization is dependant upon the threat of violence to maintain order and prosperity. Think about it.

Originally posted by Blarneystoner

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by Blarneystoner

 

That is ridiculous.

People do not need to threaten each other with violence in order for society to prosper.

In fact it is the use of violence that is going to destroy civilization and return us to the stone age.

No Sir... Civilization is dependant upon the threat of violence to maintain order and prosperity. Think about it.

I have thought about it.

I don't see it.

So you are saying that if 10 people were stranded on an Island, the only way for them to maintain order and prosperity is for them to threaten each other with violent force?

Did you come from an abusive family?