The Fallacy of Collectivism - Ludwig von Mises

Tusks
There are many things that must be done Collectively for a State to exist--border protection, maintenance of highways and water supplies, police and fire protection, sanitation/sewer services---and money supply/formation.

These do not equate to Collectivism. Collectivism is "State ownership" of the means of production of food & energy, manufacturing, job choice & pay, choice of police officers based on anything the "owners"(read banksters) see fit---and a Police State totalitarianism.

Many uninformed don't understand the differences. This is intentional on the part of the education system.

State ownership of the means of production is by far the most efficient and is inevitably what the future has in store for us, if we survive that long as a species.

The problem with state ownership of the means of production is that it was tried before its time.

Before its value and inevitability was grasped by the moronic masses.

But slowly yet assuredly, the market is leading us there.

First there were:

Matrox, Intel, S3, Power VR, 3Dfx, 3Dlabs, ATI, Nvidia, Kyro etc.

Then there were ATI and Nvidia. In the future maybe these too will merge.

First there were:

Bugatti, SEAT, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, VW, Audi, Șkoda, Porsche, MAN, Scania and Ducati.

Then there was the VW group.

First there were Peugeot, Citroen, Talbot. Now there's PSA Peugeot Citroen and their badge engineered vans, which also sell or sold under the IVECO, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler brands.

en.wikipedia.org...

Firs there were all the disparate brands (Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Baojun, Holden, Isuzu, Jie Fang, Opel, Vauxhall, and Wuling) that eventually made up GM.

Then there was GM.

First there were Renault, Nissan, Samsung and Dacia.

And so on and so forth.

Why do you think that is?

Not because redundancy of models and types is grossly inefficient?

We should only have competition in the design phase.

We should have aesthetic and engineering design houses competing with each other to have their respective designs sent into production and earn royalties. Or the strong points of their design included into the final design, the only one deployed into production for the given price point.

Not continue on into the production stage with different models.

That's completely irrational and hugely wasteful.

Just as reinventing the wheel when writing computer software is stupid and inefficient. You should only take the state of the art wheel and make it better.

And, to prove that, the market is pushing and prodding us there as we speak. See my examples above.

Unfortunately, because of our short-sightedness, avarice and stupidity as a species, we will only accept the proper way, most efficient and sustainable way to conduct ourselves and our business until we've tried absolutely everything else and failed at it long and badly enough.

When only one or two concerns or conglomerates such as GM or VW are left what is the point of letting them be private any more?

So they can organize themselves into a cartel or merge into a single, global car manufacturer?

So they can overcharge for outdated and inferior products when the incentive and reason to improve is al but gone?

What do you do then?

Split them up and start all over again? Repeat history?

For what?

Or simply nationalize their production facilities (I'm guessing and hoping that, by then, we will have evolved enough to adopt a one world government) and only split up their design and engineering facilities and make them compete with and through their designs?

reply to post by Pejeu

What you see there is state capitalism. Not socialism.

Now that is a new way of twisting the facts!

No doubt so 'Socialists' can distance themselves from the socialist/corporate cooperation called the "Third Way" (From the Fabian London School of Economics) The old word for "Third Way" was FASCISM but that went out of 'Style' as the socialist distanced themselves from the word (not the concept) after WWII. Presidents FDR, Wilson, and Clinton as well as British Prime Minister Tony Blair are all great fans of the Third Way. (A fancy term for Government-Corporate cooperation. aka the Corporate-Government Revolving Door)

Captialism is

cap·i·tal·ism noun \ˈka-pə-tə-ˌliz-əm, ˈkap-tə-, British also kə-ˈpi-tə-\

: a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government

ull Definition of CAPITALISM
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.

www.merriam-webster.com...

"...determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market." means NOT BY GOVERNMENT laws and regulations!

The world has not seen actual laissez faire capitalism for over one hundred years.

Laissez faire capitalism is a system in which individual rights and right of contract are fully upheld and there is a complete separation of economy and state.

reply to post by Pejeu

What you see there is state capitalism. Not socialism.

I forgot to ask if you know the correct name for " state capitalism"? It is a system where there is ONE corporations entirely OWNED by the government. It is normally called COMMUNISM.

reply to post by Pejeu

State ownership of the means of production is by far the most efficient and is inevitably what the future has in store for us, if we survive that long as a species.

"State ownership of the means of production" has been tried repeatedly. The first try was called feudalism but no one ever mentions that. Then they tried it in the 1620's. In the USA we get fed the 'Official BS' in school about the First Thanksgiving by the Progressives, but the true story is FAR different.

Colony Governor William Bradford recorded:

" . . . the young men . . . did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong . . . had not more in division . . . than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes, etc . . . thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And the men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it....

Bradford noted the effects of this system.

For this community of property (so far as it went) was found to breed much confusion and discontentment and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort . . . all being to have alike, and all to do alike . . . if it did not cut off those relations that God hath set amongst men, yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them....

Bradford finally gave up and tried a new system.

"All their victuals were spent . . . no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length . . . the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. . . . And so assigned to every family a parcel of land . . . "

The new system, based on the inherent humans traits- GREED and LAZINESS, worked much better.

This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn, which before would allege weakness and inability, whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

Fast forward to my lifetime and you have the same system tried again. Almost one-third of the world’s population was governed by communist regimes. One was called the Soviet Union another Red China and the same failure was seen.

Christopher Wren, a New York Times correspondent in the Soviet Union and China in the 1970s and 1980s, traveled widely in both countries and observed, at the level of the ordinary citizen, the basic inefficiencies of the system and its inability to satisfy elementary needs, let alone a real measure of freedom. The narrative, skipping back and forth between the U.S.S.R. and China and noting the similarities and contrasts, is anecdotal rather than scholarly, but its vivid and honest reporting provides strong evidence of how the system works and doesn't work.

Why in heck do you think the Fabian Socialists (aka the banker & corporate elite) are now trying the 'Third Way'? a mix of government and corporate control of the economy with an illusion of freedom for the serfs? As a serf you get to move from corporation to corporation but you never get to OWN a big corporation. That is reserved for the elite. Laws and regulations are used to wipe out any serf who tries to climb to the top and who does not have the correct philosophy. S. Robert Blair vs Bill Gates are examples.

reply to post by Pejeu

"Just give me all the marbles and I will come up with something, trust me. (sic)"

-Peșescu

reply to post by michael22


From the first post....

You seem to be asserting that there is something nefarious that occurs whenever three people make an agreement on a street corner to arrange themselves into a group with shared interests...

It sounds as though you're combatting the idea of confederations and communes and nations and unions, along with all reasonable agreements amidst groups of men. You're refuting the notion of pacts....

From the second post.

This normally works itself out. It's not some nasty unrevisable contract. This is the chosen arrangement of people into political parties and unions and all the rest.

This completely ignorant view of history comes from a person in the business of SCHOOL BOOK PUBLISHING! Link

I am Gobsmacked!

This person does not even know the simplest points.:

In 1905 the Communists tried to get the farmers to revolt against the Czar, but they refused. Many of the leaders, including Lenin and Trotsky were exiled.

In March, 1917 a provincial government was set up by Prince George Lvov, a liberal progressive reformer who wanted to set up a democracy.

The exiled Leon Trotsky left New York aboard the S. S. Kristianiafjord (S. S. Christiania), which had been chartered by bankers Schiff and Paul Warburg, on March 27, 1917 along with other communist revolutionaries. The Canadians under orders from the British Admiralty seized Trotsky and his men, taking them to the prison at Amherst, and impounding the gold from the American Bankers.

Official records, later declassified by the Canadian government, indicate that they knew of Trotsky and his small army. It was the American government, through Col. House (a socialist) who urged them to let Trotsky go. Wilson said that if they didn't comply, the U.S. wouldn't enter War I.

Trotsky was released, given an American passport, a British transport visa, and a Russian entry permit.

Meanwhile, Lenin, with the help of Max Warburg, brother of Paul Warburg who wrote the infamous Federal Reserve Act of 1913, along with 32 other Bolsheviks was put in a sealed railway car with over $5 million in gold from the German government.

This isn't a "..reasonable agreements amidst groups of men..." it is an overthrough of a new democratic government by the BANKSTERS.
...............

It's not some nasty unrevisable contract. This is the chosen arrangement of people into political parties...

You have GOT to be KIDDING!
Back to Dr. R.J. Rummel's DEMOCIDE - DEATH BY GOVERNMENT

The statistics refute that out right lie.

128,168,000 VICTIMS: THE DEKA-MEGAMURDERERS

61,911,000 Murdered: The Soviet Gulag State

35,236,000 Murdered: The Communist Chinese Ant Hill

19,178,000 VICTIMS: THE LESSER MEGA-MURDERERS

2,035,000 Murdered: The Khmer Rouge Hell State

1,670,000 Murdered: The Vietnamese War State

1,585,000 Murdered: Poland's Ethnic Cleansing

1,072,000 Murdered: Tito's Slaughterhouse

4,145,000 VICTIMS: SUSPECTED MEGAMURDERERS

1,663,000 Murdered? Orwellian North Korea

So what is going on? Read between the lines:

Ignoring Elites, Historians Are Missing a Major Factor in Politics and History: Steve Fraser, Gary Gerstel (2005)
... Over the last quarter-century, historians have by and large ceased writing about the role of ruling elites in the country's evolution. Or if they have taken up the subject, they have done so to argue against its salience for grasping the essentials of American political history. Yet there is something peculiar about this recent intellectual aversion, even if we accept as true the beliefs that democracy, social mobility, and economic dynamism have long inhibited the congealing of a ruling stratum. This aversion has coincided, after all, with one of the largest and fastest-growing disparities in the division of income and wealth in American history....Neglecting the powerful had not been characteristic of historical work before World War II....

Note that the Rhodes-Milner Round Tables called The Council of Foreign Affairs and its sister organization The Committee on Economic Development were founded in the USA after WWII and have dominated US politics ever since.

reply to post by Pejeu


The most efficient and cost effective ways have nearly always been found by individual initiative--not by collectivist control. Bureaucracies are crippling to free enterprise.

You think Socialism will work with your brains in control--which is exactly what previous failed Socialist State controllers have believed. Unfortunately, the West is headed toward Totalitarianism rapidly--through corporate bankster control of everything of material value.

reply to post by crimvelvet


I agree with most of your post except:

"The new system, based on the inherent humans traits- GREED and LAZINESS, worked much better. "

Not Greed and Laziness (sins), but Basic Self Interest(Prudence and Justice-- virtues).

Tusks
reply to post by crimvelvet

 

I agree with most of your post except:

"The new system, based on the inherent humans traits- GREED and LAZINESS, worked much better. "

Not Greed and Laziness (sins), but Basic Self Interest(Prudence and Justice-- virtues).

I was trying to make it clear to 'Socialists'

'Greed' and 'Laziness' are hardwired into animals. You eat as much as you can when food is plentiful to store up fat for when times are lean. You expend only as much energy as is absolutely necessary. The only exception to the 'Laziness' hardwiring is during youth when learning and muscle development occur. In other words there is NOTHING 'Evil" about either trait. They are survival mechanisms.

The traits are only 'Evil' from the point of view of leaders. Remember the Medieval Church tithe [tenth] was 10% of all the serfs produced. Obviously laziness and greed (hiding your product) would be discouraged.

Humans have modified this hardwiring because we are 'Social critters' and have found cooperation gives us an advantage and as does having the intelligence to look forward in time. This means we will follow a leader who demonstrates wisdom. We will expend the energy to plant crops, harvest and store food and build shelter for the coming bad weather.

The flip side is humans WILL retaliate against leaders when it becomes obvious they do not have wisdom.

Bog bodies are kings sacrificed by Celts says expert

....The body also proves they underwent horrible deaths, if the times turned bad under their reign.

The latest Iron Age bog body dating back to at least 2,000 BC was discovered near Portlaoise in the Irish midlands by an alert bog worker and it bears the same hallmarks of ritual torture that two other famous bodies have.

Ned Kelly, keeper of antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland told the Irish Examiner that a clear pattern has emerged in each case...

This of course is the reason for Democide. Whenever any signs of rebellion show up you have to kill off the possible rebellion's leaders and make examples to frighten the people into obeying. Of course this doesn't do productivity much good.

This is why 'Communism' is being abandoned by the Elite and they are trying to find a system where they are in control but the serfs will work and not rebel.

crimvelvet
reply to post by Pejeu

 

What you see there is state capitalism. Not socialism.

I forgot to ask if you know the correct name for " state capitalism"? It is a system where there is ONE corporations entirely OWNED by the government. It is normally called COMMUNISM.

Actually, theoretical communism is where and when the means of production are owned by the workers.

Except Marx didn't foresee most workers will eventually become obsolete, redundant. Replaced by machines.

Except for the research and development and design sectors.

Which will be the last to be automated.

But they will too, nevertheless.

When we will be able to produce machines which are self aware and at least as intelligent and creative as us.

Machines capable of designing better machines all by their lonesome.

That is still some way off.

But I think we'll be there by the end of the century.

If we'll make it that far, that is.

But even if we make it that far, it's quite possible our machines will simply chose to do us in.

A la terminator.

crimvelvetThe world has not seen actual laissez faire capitalism for over one hundred years.

You have an unfathomably favourable but completely erroneous mental image of what that system was like, for most people.

You know, the ones who weren't obscenely rich.

Also, it was not capitalism.

You had insurance and banking business back then as well.

And if you think insurance and banking are NOT socialism/communistic/collectivist... that's just your problem.

Not mine.

Tusks
reply to post by Pejeu

 

The most efficient and cost effective ways have nearly always been found by individual initiative--not by collectivist control. Bureaucracies are crippling to free enterprise.

You think Socialism will work with your brains in control--which is exactly what previous failed Socialist State controllers have believed. Unfortunately, the West is headed toward Totalitarianism rapidly--through corporate bankster control of everything of material value.

That's just bull#, right there.

People can simply be paid to think up solutions to problems or improvements to the current ways of doing things. It's how most problems got and still get solved.

It's how the modern Rzeppa, constant velocity joint came by.

It matters not if they get paid by the state specifically to do this or if they get paid by private enterprises, specifically to do this.

Granted, there have been things occasionally invented by people who were not actually paid to come up with them but did it on their own time and got to retain the rights to their idea after they came up with it (as opposed to people specifically paid to come with stuff that ownership for which, as per their employment contract, is automatically assigned to their employer).

These people then sought and obtained patents to protect their priority and interests for a set period of time.

You know, patents. Those nasty little things you need a government to enforce before they are allowed to expire?

Socialism has not been tried, ever. Actually.

Except for Hitler's Germany, after Hjalmar Schacht's monetary reform.

But I'm not sure you could exactly call that socialism.

I think it would more aptly be labelled true capitalism. Economically speaking.

Capitalism is not about mass killing of undesirables, state religion, personality cults and what not. But then again neither is true socialism.

They just chose that way instead of letting them starve/beg in the streets or feeding, clothing and housing them at public expense.

There aren't any truly private enterprises in today's society, with the insurance, and banking business rampant as they are.

Of course you know that all banking is inherently fraudulent and it socializes the cost of lending.

Don't you?

And all insurance is inherently socialist as you can conceivably take out more than what you personally put in.

reply to post by crimvelvet


Great topic, Greencmp. Orwell once said "We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men” . I don't believe things have gotten any better since.

Thanks to both you and Crim for going through the trouble of correcting/addressing Pejeu. Collectivism by force -- be it known as socialism, communism, progressivism, or happy sharingism -- always preys on the ignorant and weak-minded for support. The best we can hope for is to reach the former by sharing history and truth. The latter, sadly, are the lost causes; they cannot contribute to policy-making any better than a child can.

It had been said before in more eloquent ways by far more respected individuals: Without educated voters, the great experiment in individualism is doomed to fail.

OpenMindedRealist
reply to post by crimvelvet

 

Great topic, Greencmp. Orwell once said "We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men” . I don't believe things have gotten any better since.

Thanks to both you and Crim for going through the trouble of correcting/addressing Pejeu. Collectivism by force -- be it known as socialism, communism, progressivism, or happy sharingism -- always preys on the ignorant and weak-minded for support. The best we can hope for is to reach the former by sharing history and truth. The latter, sadly, are the lost causes; they cannot contribute to policy-making any better than a child can.

It had been said before in more eloquent ways by far more respected individuals: Without educated voters, the great experiment in individualism is doomed to fail.

We really are up against well entrenched statist indoctrination within education and media.

Fortunately, all it takes is a little truth to ignite the spark of understanding.

I don't expect to convert Pejeu but, there will likely be some who might find it illuminating to witness this verbose 'conversation'. You can't go wrong talking about truth.

Some may even reconsider their own similar opinions knowing how close they are. Some might recognize the extent to which outside influences like peer pressure have guided their decision making.

It is never too late to start.

Dude, I'm slaughtering you.

Only people who will read this topic and take away what you want them to take away?

Well, they're way beyond redemption anyway.

Pejeu
Dude, I'm slaughtering you.

Only people who will read this topic and take away what you want them to take away?

Well, they're way beyond redemption anyway.

edit on 2013/10/14 by Pejeu because: (no reason given)

I must say that you have been very thorough and elegant in the way that you have made out the case, painting a clear picture of the most obscene kind of world where the essence of mankind - of endeavour and adventure, creativity and thirst for improving the world through improving the self and challenging preconceptions - is forever subjugated to the whims of those who have the least to bring to mankind through their own refusal to accept that, with the power of freedom of body and mind and thought and spirit, comes the responsibility to exercise it in the face of adversity.

I thought about breaking that down into smaller sentences but decided to exercise the power of freedom of thought and spirit, if not the power of easy reading...

reply to post by Pejeu

....You have an unfathomably favourable but completely erroneous mental image of what that system was like, for most people....

WRONG!
One hundred years or so ago was the time of the robber barons and 'company towns' where people were essentially slaves to the corporation. It is similar to what corporations want to reinstate today under the guise of the UN's Agenda 21. The 'Company Towns' have been renamed Transit Villages but without the freedom to own property or start your own business or even to move to another location without 'permission' it is nothing more than a modern version of a 'Company Town'.

You actually had the wealthy business owners and bankers influencing government back then too. Read up on the wiping out of the buffalo some time to see what I mean. Heck the wealthy have ALWAYS had more influence than the average person so from that point of view we have rarely had real capitalism unless you go way way back in history/pre-history.

I prefer a 'Mixed Economy' with just enough regulations, like anti-monopoly/monopony laws to keep the playing field leveled. I also consider Fractional Reserve Banking fraud.

The speech of Sen. Daniel Webster, during the debate over the reauthorization of the Second National Bank of the U.S. in 1832, summed up much of the American view toward money in general....

“A disordered currency is one of the greatest of evils. It wars against industry, frugality, and economy. And it fosters the evil spirits of extravagance and speculation. Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money. This is one of the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man’s field by the sweat of the poor man’s brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation: These bear lightly the happiness of the mass of the community, compared with fraudulent currencies and robberies committed with depreciated paper.”

dailyreckoning.com...

Much of the influence and wealth of certain individuals can be traced directly to the Fractional Reserve Banking fraud.

reply to post by EvillerBob

I thought about breaking that down into smaller sentences....

I found it easy to understand. On the other hand I have spent the last several decades reading the Bafflegab* found in peer-reviewed papers.

*Bafflegab is a term stolen from Dr. Scott Armstrong's paper on how to write peer-reviewed papers.

reply to post by EvillerBob


Well said, Bob, and in one gloriously loquacious sentence.

reply to post by greencmp


Entrenched like a kraut in Verdun.

Over the past several years, I have gradually waded closer to the abyss of conspiracy theories. I don't believe I am caught in the whirlpool yet.

I can see two explanations as to how this country has become what it is today. Either we are witnessing late stages of a carefully crafted, long-term campaign with the intent to manipulate and transform American society...
OR free and prosperous societies simply tend toward self distruction by means of willful ignorance, short-sightedness, and apathy. Rome makes an obvious case for this one.

Either way, the only answer is sharing the truth. Educating the people adequately in the formulation and value of the US Constitution would be a good start.