How capitalism creates killing fields:
Proudhon
Socialism generaly starts out as a peaceful movement of a direct-action
or political propaganda nature and reverts to "brutal communism"
after borgeois forces attack and repress the peaceful political
protest or actions. It is a sad fact that Fascist and Marxist-Leninist
and Maoist movements all came out of, or rather were the result of,
brutal repression and harsh military action on the part of
capitalists. It doesnt help things when folks like James Donald
or Bryan Caplan dedicate their lives to smearing the posative, libertarian
and democratic aspects of the left so that people fear them and attack
them and all that is left are the most cunning and brutal
"communists" who managed to survive.
This is the legecy of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot - all in effect
"created" by capitalist oppression in the early stages of a movement.
-Proudhon
G*rd*n
anon...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Proudhon):
| Socialism generaly starts out as a peaceful movement of a direct-action
| or political propaganda nature and reverts to "brutal communism"
| after borgeois forces attack and repress the peaceful political
The development of liberal bourgeois capitalism has been
highly aggressive and violent, and any competing ideology,
especially one which criticizes liberalism using liberal
values and ideas, is likely to share in these
characteristics. The brutalities of industrialization
in England lead to, inspire, the brutalities of the Five-
Year Plans; genocide in Ireland presages genocide in the
Ukraine. I wish socialists had distanced themselves
more from capitalism. Recall the end of _Animal_Farm_.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
-----------------------------------------------
NOTE: if your ISP permits junkmailing, you will
probably not be able to reach me by email.
James A. Donald
anon...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Proudhon) wrote:
>Socialism generaly starts out as a peaceful movement of a direct-action
>or political propaganda nature and reverts to "brutal communism"
>after borgeois forces attack and repress the peaceful political
>protest or actions.
This is crap:
Lenin's policy was terror from the very start. He seized power from
Kerensky's peaceful democracy that never engaged in any repression
against those that sought to overthrow it, and he promptly started
killing people.
Even the more democratic paths to socialism, for example Chile under
Allende, Guatemala under Arbanz, and Spain under the coalition before
the civil war, the initial violence came from the democratically
elected socialists. They did not start off with murder, but the first
arrests and beatings always came from the socialists, as they found it
necessary to employ ever escalating violence to obtain submission to
socialism.
You can argue that Pinochet was a lot more violent than Allende, and
that is undeniably true, but Allende started it. He had a large
number of people beaten up or arrested, even though he did not murder
people. The pre civil war Spanish government *did* murder people,
though in quite small numbers.
It was Arbanz in Guatemala that first crushed peaceful and non violent
protest, Arbanz who ended democracy by imprisoning the parliamentary
representation of the opposition parties.
The Spanish coalition was about midway between Arbanz and Allende, in
that in spain there was some limited terror against the church and
businessmen and the press was silenced, but only the fascist party was
banned, other parties were free to operate normally, (unlike Guatemala
under Arbanz), or as normally as one can operate with press censorship
and ones supporters in grave danger of violence.
In short, even in the most favorable cases, the violence always
started with the socialists.
And where this violence was ended by vastly greater violence from
capitalists, as in Chile, the kill rate was still utterly
insignificant compared to the most benevolent of Marxist states.
> It is a sad fact that Fascist and Marxist-Leninist
> and Maoist movements all came out of, or rather were the result of,
> brutal repression and harsh military action on the part of
> capitalists.
This total fantasy.
What repression did Lenin suffer from the government that he
overthrew, and the people that he murdered?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald jam...@echeque.com
lam...@nospam.washington.edu
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:
>Even the more democratic paths to socialism, for example...
Sweeden?
Fix your broken record player.
Also, how about Haiti under Aristide?
>In short, even in the most favorable cases, the violence always
>started with the socialists.
Yeah, Duvalier was a peach, and those goddamn Sweedish Commies are a
blood-thristy bunch...
>And where this violence was ended by vastly greater violence from
>capitalists, as in Chile, the kill rate was still utterly
>insignificant compared to the most benevolent of Marxist states.
I'm terribly sorry, but Cuba pales in comparision to Indonesia.
--
Lamont Granquist (lamontg at u dot washington dot edu) ->note spamfilter<-
"First consider a spherical chicken..." ICBM: 47 39'23"N 122 18'19"W
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
James A. Donald
>>And where this violence was ended by vastly greater violence from
>>capitalists, as in Chile, the kill rate was still utterly
>>insignificant compared to the most benevolent of Marxist states.
lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
>I'm terribly sorry, but Cuba pales in comparision to Indonesia.
Since Cuba was a far more closed society than Indonesia, you have no
way of knowing that, and even if it is true, it is irrelevant to my
point, that the violence used against democratic socialists such as
Arbanz and Allende is vastly less than in any country where the means
of production were successfully socialized, and that democratic
socialists who actually attempted to socialize the means of
productions, invariably found it necessary to use violence on a scale
that made democracy impossible, and non violent opposition impossible.
G*rd*n
anon...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Proudhon) wrote:
| >Socialism generaly starts out as a peaceful movement of a direct-action
| >or political propaganda nature and reverts to "brutal communism"
| >after borgeois forces attack and repress the peaceful political
| >protest or actions.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| This is crap:
|
| Lenin's policy was terror from the very start. He seized power from
| Kerensky's peaceful democracy that never engaged in any repression
| against those that sought to overthrow it, and he promptly started
| killing people. ...
One of the serious errors of the Kerensky government, as I
recall, was to attempt to prosecute the war against Germany,
in other words, to continue the game of power-politics which
had already devastated the Russian Empire. Not very
peaceful, and mostly to the advantage of the British and the
French rather than the Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, etc., on
the Russian side. Probably, Kerensky and his party was
either receiving material support from the West, or at least
were so hopelessly imbued with bourgeois prejudices and
loyalties they expected to -- hence the ruinous prosecution
of the war. It's hard to imagine another reason for this
policy.
To be fair, Kerensky was probably "innocent" in the sense of
not being very much in control of, or even aware, of what
was going on. As a child I recall seeing him interviewed on
television -- at least they said it was Kerensky -- and he
seemed to be under the impression that a few British
gunboats in the Baltic would have set the rabble to flight.
In spite of all this, I believe Kerensky was nominally a
socialist or social democrat, so by James's system he ought
to be a ravening mass-murderer, not the head of a "peaceful
democracy."
As an exemplar of socialism, Lenin had his police seize
control of factories which were actually being managed by
their anarcho-syndicalist workers; these were placed under
control of the Soviet state. Lenin was honest enough to
call this arrangement "state capitalism." However, had
Lenin _not_ established some kind of militaristic central
control, it's hard to see how his party could have resisted
the inevitable counterattacks which followed the revolution.
I don't like Lenin or his scene, but I do think he correctly
understood standard liberal bourgeois policy, which includes
unlimited violence, including genocide and slavery, upon
non-liberal peoples and states, whenever convenient.
James A. Donald
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> However, had
> Lenin _not_ established some kind of militaristic central
> control, it's hard to see how his party could have resisted
> the inevitable counterattacks which followed the revolution.
How very strange that in every single case, without exception, the
socialists "counter attack" (almost always by violently suppressing
peaceful opposition) before the evil capitalists actually attack by
violent means.
G*rd*n
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > However, had
| > Lenin _not_ established some kind of militaristic central
| > control, it's hard to see how his party could have resisted
| > the inevitable counterattacks which followed the revolution.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| How very strange that in every single case, without exception, the
| socialists "counter attack" (almost always by violently suppressing
| peaceful opposition) before the evil capitalists actually attack by
| violent means.
It's hell what them socialists can do to an innocent Sunday
school picnic like Russia 1917.
James A. Donald
James A. Donald):
> > How very strange that in every single case, without exception, the
> > socialists "counter attack" (almost always by violently suppressing
> > peaceful opposition) before the evil capitalists actually attack by
> > violent means.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> It's hell what them socialists can do to an innocent Sunday
> school picnic like Russia 1917.
Kerensky did not suppress his political opponents, including those
opponents who very plainly intended to kill him and everyone like him.
Lenin murdered people by political category, by social category, for
trivial convenience, and sometimes simply randomly to create terror.
G*rd*n
James A. Donald):
| > > How very strange that in every single case, without exception, the
| > > socialists "counter attack" (almost always by violently suppressing
| > > peaceful opposition) before the evil capitalists actually attack by
| > > violent means.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > It's hell what them socialists can do to an innocent Sunday
| > school picnic like Russia 1917.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| Kerensky did not suppress his political opponents, including those
| opponents who very plainly intended to kill him and everyone like him.
Assuming he was a reasonable man, then, he must have been
powerless -- he did not defend himself against those who
proposed to kill him -- and need not enter into a
discussion of the events of 1917 except as some kind of
marker or symbol, an innocent sacrificial lamb perhaps.
However, it is my understanding that he _did_ propose to
carry on the war against Germany. Accounts of those days
are confused, but as I recall the continuation of the war
was one of the principal complaints of the revolutionists.
You do recall that there was a war going on at the time, do
you not?
| Lenin murdered people by political category, by social category, for
| trivial convenience, and sometimes simply randomly to create terror.
Yes, Lenin was not a very nice fellow. I think that was
part of the point I was trying to make.
James A. Donald
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
> > Kerensky did not suppress his political opponents, including those
> > opponents who very plainly intended to kill him and everyone like him.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> Assuming he was a reasonable man, then, he must have been
> powerless -- he did not defend himself against those who
> proposed to kill him
You intend to kill me and everyone like me, just as Lenin plainly
intended to kill Kerensky and everyone like him, and yet I do not
shoot you, nor am I entitled to, and similarly Kerensky was not
entitled to kill Lenin, and refrained from doing so.
Now if you actually got started making socialism happen, then I would
be entitled to shoot you, and I would certainly attempt to do so
lam...@nospam.washington.edu
you've stopped taking your thorazine, again.
G*rd*n
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| > > Kerensky did not suppress his political opponents, including those
| > > opponents who very plainly intended to kill him and everyone like him.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > Assuming he was a reasonable man, then, he must have been
| > powerless -- he did not defend himself against those who
| > proposed to kill him
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| You intend to kill me and everyone like me, just as Lenin plainly
| intended to kill Kerensky and everyone like him, and yet I do not
| shoot you, nor am I entitled to, and similarly Kerensky was not
| entitled to kill Lenin, and refrained from doing so.
| ...
James, don't be romantic. It is in fact a great deal of
effort to even intend seriously to kill someone, and you
have not yet earned the honor of being on my target list.
On the contrary, were I to kill you, I would no longer
have your articles to hit off on Usenet. So you will
have to find another assassin.
James A. Donald
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
> > > > Kerensky did not suppress his political opponents, including those
> > > > opponents who very plainly intended to kill him and everyone like him.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> > > Assuming he was a reasonable man, then, he must have been
> > > powerless -- he did not defend himself against those who
> > > proposed to kill him
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
> > You intend to kill me and everyone like me, just as Lenin plainly
> > intended to kill Kerensky and everyone like him, and yet I do not
> > shoot you, nor am I entitled to, and similarly Kerensky was not
> > entitled to kill Lenin, and refrained from doing so.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> James, don't be romantic. It is in fact a great deal of
> effort to even intend seriously to kill someone, and you
> have not yet earned the honor of being on my target list.
You seek to impose an economic system that necessitates killing
everyone like me, and when we discuss others, such as Lenin, who
imposed that economic system, you justify their crimes by quite
correctly pointing out that necessity compelled them to kill everyone
like me. They did not actually want to do it, it was the wicked
resistance of people like me to their wonderful economic system that
unfortunately compelled them to kill anyone who vaguely resembled
someone who might resist.
James A. Donald
lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
> you've stopped taking your thorazine, again.
If someone claims that Lenin's murders were unfortunate and
unnecessary, perhaps he deludes himself that peaceful socialism is
possible, and hopes to achieve that peaceful socialism.
If, however, someone claims that Lenin's murders were a regrettable
necessity, forced on Lenin and all other socialists, by the wickedness
and greed of the selfish capitalists, it seems unlikely that he
believes that the capitalists are going to turn virtuous soon.
G*rd*n
lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
| > you've stopped taking your thorazine, again.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| If someone claims that Lenin's murders were unfortunate and
| unnecessary, perhaps he deludes himself that peaceful socialism is
| possible, and hopes to achieve that peaceful socialism.
|
| If, however, someone claims that Lenin's murders were a regrettable
| necessity, forced on Lenin and all other socialists, by the wickedness
| and greed of the selfish capitalists, it seems unlikely that he
| believes that the capitalists are going to turn virtuous soon.
This might lead to Lenin and his party having to kill you,
or at least scare you off, but I fail to see how it applies
to me or anyone else not a Leninist or of like beliefs.
C. Petersen
>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:
>| > > You intend to kill me and everyone like me,
>
>lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
>| > you've stopped taking your thorazine, again.
>
>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
>| If someone claims that Lenin's murders were unfortunate and
>| unnecessary, perhaps he deludes himself that peaceful socialism is
>| possible, and hopes to achieve that peaceful socialism.
>|
>| If, however, someone claims that Lenin's murders were a regrettable
>| necessity, forced on Lenin and all other socialists, by the wickedness
>| and greed of the selfish capitalists, it seems unlikely that he
>| believes that the capitalists are going to turn virtuous soon.
Victimology!
yeah, there's J.Donaldson right there next to jesus and the contra'freedom
fighters', sitting behind his computer resisting against all these
'socialists' who want to kill him off. Onward, soldier. Of course, what
doesn't pervade the consciousness is that no one in the past 100 messages
of this thread has even insinuated a support for Stalinism or Maoism, and
at most people referred to Sweden as a good model of socialism. Everyone
wants to be a martyr. Left wingers see nazis everywhere even though
there's only a few people like Tim McVeigh & the klan and the militias.
Christians try to build the case that they're widely oppressed due to a
few countries such as Ethiopia & China where there is persecution. Right
wingers see stalinists behind every bush, probably controlling the
democrats. not that anyone sees them poke their heads up very often.
--
Christine Petersen
James A. Donald
>>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:
>>| > > You intend to kill me and everyone like me,
ott...@u.washington.edu (C. Petersen) wrote:
> Of course, what
> doesn't pervade the consciousness is that no one in the past 100 messages
> of this thread has even insinuated a support for Stalinism or Maoism,
There has been plenty of support for Leninism and Trotskyism, and
recall that when Stalin and Trotsky were both roughly equal in power,
it was Trotsky that committed by far the more murders than Stalin, and
Lenin that supervised them both.
James A. Donald
lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
>| > you've stopped taking your thorazine, again.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
> > If someone claims that Lenin's murders were unfortunate and
> > unnecessary, perhaps he deludes himself that peaceful socialism is
> > possible, and hopes to achieve that peaceful socialism.
> >
> > If, however, someone claims that Lenin's murders were a regrettable
> > necessity, forced on Lenin and all other socialists, by the wickedness
> > and greed of the selfish capitalists, it seems unlikely that he
> > believes that the capitalists are going to turn virtuous soon.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> This might lead to Lenin and his party having to kill you,
> or at least scare you off, but I fail to see how it applies
> to me or anyone else not a Leninist or of like beliefs.
If poor Lenin had to murder and terrorize in order to protect his
socialism from the cruel attack by the evil capitalists, will not your
socialism be reluctantly forced to take similar measures?
G*rd*n
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > This might lead to Lenin and his party having to kill you,
| > or at least scare you off, but I fail to see how it applies
| > to me or anyone else not a Leninist or of like beliefs.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| If poor Lenin had to murder and terrorize in order to protect his
| socialism from the cruel attack by the evil capitalists, will not your
| socialism be reluctantly forced to take similar measures?
What is "my socialism"? I've simply been describing
socialist theory here against an ocean of propaganda and
disinformation; I'm not trying to take over the Russian
Empire in 1917. Any who wants to play the nation-state
game must kill people; that's one of the rules. Lenin
played the game, with predictable results, although I'm
not aware of his having achieved the same extermination
level as (for example) the British in Ireland.
James A. Donald
ott...@u.washington.edu (C. Petersen) wrote:
> Everyone
> wants to be a martyr. Left wingers see nazis everywhere even though
> there's only a few people like Tim McVeigh & the klan and the militias.
> Christians try to build the case that they're widely oppressed due to a
> few countries such as Ethiopia & China where there is persecution. Right
> wingers see stalinists behind every bush, probably controlling the
> democrats. not that anyone sees them poke their heads up very often.
Socialists have murdered about one hundred million people during the
twentieth century in an effort to suppress property rights.
Hardly a mere paranoid fantasy.
the effort to suppress property rights is the by far the largest cause
of mass murder, vastly exceeding race, religion, etc. Indeed it
somewhat outweighs all other motivations for democide put together.
G*rd*n
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| Does not matter.
|
| Whatever your socialism is, it is going to encounter the same problems
| with evil capitalists that you claim made it necessary for Lenin to
| employ terror.
|
| Care to explain why these evil capitalist oppressors so threatened
| Lenin's socialism that the poor guy was reluctantly forced to committ
| murder and terror, yet these evil capitalist oppressors of the masses
| will not similarly threaten your socialism?
I'm not a socialist. Socialism is a form of capitalism,
and I think we're near the end of the run for capitalism.
Why reform a system whose time is almost up? Especially
when the _ancien_regime_ (as you observe sarcastically
but truly) will use every resource of fraud, terror
and violence necessary to preserve its power against
challengers who come against it on its own terms. I
mean, what do you think would happen if a socialist party
began to make any serious headway in elections in the
United States, with trillions of dollars and millions of
careers at stake? Think about it.
James A. Donald
Does not matter.
Whatever your socialism is, it is going to encounter the same problems
with evil capitalists that you claim made it necessary for Lenin to
employ terror.
Care to explain why these evil capitalist oppressors so threatened
Lenin's socialism that the poor guy was reluctantly forced to committ
murder and terror, yet these evil capitalist oppressors of the masses
will not similarly threaten your socialism?
Alexander J Russell
In article <5r3ou1$2...@panix2.panix.com>, g...@panix.com says...
[snip]
>I'm not a socialist. Socialism is a form of capitalism,
>and I think we're near the end of the run for capitalism.
>Why reform a system whose time is almost up?
> }"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
>-----------------------------------------------
>NOTE: if your ISP permits junkmailing, you will
>probably not be able to reach me by email.
Why is capitalism's time almost up?
What is wrong with it? why is it failing, and no one else noticed?
What will take its place?
Why will this new system be better?
--
The AnArChIsT! Anarchy! Not Chaos!
aka
Alex Russell
ale...@uniserve.com
G*rd*n
ale...@uniserve.com (Alexander J Russell):
| Why is capitalism's time almost up?
| What is wrong with it? why is it failing, and no one else noticed?
Capitalism (as we know it) is among other things a system of
social domination in which the ruling or leading class are
the bourgeoisie, people who have power because they possess
or manage capital. Clearly, capital confers this power only
as long as it is scarce -- if it becomes too plentiful and
widespread, it can no longer be used as a tool of social
domination.
Human powers of production are increasing exponentially.
Therefore, either they will overwhelm all modes of waste and
consumption, among other things ending capital scarcity, or
at least the system will become too unstable to persist.
| What will take its place?
| Why will this new system be better?
I have about as much idea of what is to succeed capitalism
as a 12th-century artisan had of what was going to succeed
feudalism, or what to call it. Probably to us it would
(will?) look like anarchy, because the social relations
we're familiar with will disappear.
--
C. Petersen
>> Everyone
>> wants to be a martyr. Left wingers see nazis everywhere even though
>> there's only a few people like Tim McVeigh & the klan and the militias.
>> Christians try to build the case that they're widely oppressed due to a
>> few countries such as Ethiopia & China where there is persecution. Right
>> wingers see stalinists behind every bush, probably controlling the
>> democrats. not that anyone sees them poke their heads up very often.
>
>Socialists have murdered about one hundred million people during the
>twentieth century in an effort to suppress property rights.
>
>Hardly a mere paranoid fantasy.
>
>the effort to suppress property rights is the by far the largest cause
>of mass murder, vastly exceeding race, religion, etc. Indeed it
>somewhat outweighs all other motivations for democide put together.
You're using the sort of argument that the writer David Horowitz used when
he came to talk at my school. He used to be a fanaticist left winger and
now he's a fanatic right winger. In his world, only the far extremes
exist, and he uses a reasoning that because pol pot and Stalin existed,
therefore, the entire 50% of people to the left side of the spectrum are
complicit and guilty of their crimes, because it is only the fact that
they don't have enough power that they aren't setting up gulags to kill
all the rugged individualists and so forth.
Well, using this reasoning, Hitler existed. He was a right winger
and he was responsible for the deaths of a number of people in my family,
and the horrible childhood of my mother who was starving during the
afterwar period. Therefore, all right wingers would go this far, if they
got the power, and are going to hell.
--
Christine Petersen
G*rd*n
ott...@u.washington.edu (C. Petersen) wrote:
| > he uses a reasoning that because pol pot and Stalin existed,
| > therefore, the entire 50% of people to the left side of the spectrum are
| > complicit and guilty of their crimes,
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| I, and Horowitz, have produced ample evidence that the radical left
| still today displays the same casual indifference to mass murder and
| democide, not only the slaughter of the human cattle they plan to
| rule, but even the murder of their fellow leftists. Horowitz was
| particularly incensed to the indifference of the radicals to the
| murder of his leftist friend by the black panthers.
| ...
Yes, very selectively, which was the point. The only place
this sort of thing goes over is in a star chamber or in
front of a mob, and I suggest you abandon it.
James A. Donald
ott...@u.washington.edu (C. Petersen) wrote:
> he uses a reasoning that because pol pot and Stalin existed,
> therefore, the entire 50% of people to the left side of the spectrum are
> complicit and guilty of their crimes,
I, and Horowitz, have produced ample evidence that the radical left
still today displays the same casual indifference to mass murder and
democide, not only the slaughter of the human cattle they plan to
rule, but even the murder of their fellow leftists. Horowitz was
particularly incensed to the indifference of the radicals to the
murder of his leftist friend by the black panthers.
A more conspicuous example of radical leftists acceptance of
extermination of radical leftists is Cambodia. For example Sihanouk,
like Pinochet using mass murder to prevent communist takeover,
committed the same crimes against leftists as Pinochet, on a
considerably greater scale, with public and brutal acts of terror,
crucifixions, disembowelings, throwing groups of lefties off cliffs,
but because Sihanouk was sucking up to communist states at the time,
and Pinochet was not, the left totally and completely sucked up to
Sihanouk, showing that they cared more about international communist
governments than the lives of their fellow revolutionaries.
The radical left does sometimes get a little bit upset about the
extermination of their fellow radicals, which is why they do not like
Stalin, but they have invariably displayed a contemptuous lack of
concern about the human cattle the intend to enslave with terror,
which is why the tend to name their factions after mass murderers and
torturers, for example Trotskyists, Sandinistas, Zapatistas. Not even
Nazi factions name themselves after people who engaged in public
displays of perverse sadism.
General Zapata was famous for publicly torturing people in undesirable
social categories to death He crucified people on telegraph poles and
cactuses, he staked people over anthills, and he created ingenious,
novel, and unusual tortures for his entertainment and the
entertainment of his troops.
One of Zapata's favorite tortures was to erect to stake out a man on a
framework of branches over the top of a blossoming maguey cactus.
During the night the thorn tipped blossom stick of the cactus would
slowly drive itself through the staked out victim. Very phallic.
And here of course, is Chomsky lying his head of about the well
documented and amply supported claims of mass murder in Cambodia by
Barron and Paul, a report amply supported by overwhelming and
undeniable evidence, and, since the Vietnamese invasion rendered Pol
Pot politically inconvenient, a report whose truth has been admitted
by the Chomsky himself.
Their scholarship collapses under the barest scrutiny. To
cite a few cases, they state that among those evacuated
from Phnom Penh, "virtually everybody saw the
consequences of [summary executions] in the form of
the corpses of men, women and children rapidly
bloating and rotting in the hot sun," citing, among others,
J.J. Cazaux, who wrote, in fact, that "not a single corpse
was seen along our evacuation route," and that early
reports of massacres proved fallacious (The
Washington Post, May 9, 1975). They also cite The
New York Times, May 9, 1975, where Sydney
Shanberg wrote that "there have been unconfirmed
reports of executions of senior military and civilian
officials ... But none of this will apparently bear any
resemblance to the mass executions that had been
predicted by Westerners,"
There was of course overwhelming evidence of immediate mass
executions.
and that "Here and there
were bodies, but it was difficult to tell if they were
people who had succumbed to the hardships of the
march or simply civilians and soldiers killed in the last
battles."
Funny that: The last battles occurred in and around the capital.
Pretty tough evacuation march if people are dropping dead in the
suburbs
They do not mention the Swedish journalist,
Olle Tolgraven, or Richard Boyle of Pacific News
Service, the last newsman to leave Cambodia, who
denied the existence of wholesale executions;
Lie: He said he did not see wholesale executions.
nor do
they cite the testimony of Father Jacques Engelmann, a
priest with nearly two decades of experience in
Cambodia, who was evacuated at the same time and
reported that evacuated priests "were not witness to any
cruelties" and that there were deaths, but "not
thousands, as certain newspapers have written" (cited
by Hildebrand and Porter).
We had ample evidence of immediate mass executions on a vast scale.
Barron and Paul claim that there is no evidence of
popular support for the Communists in the countryside
and that people "fled to the cities" as a result of the
"harsh regimen" imposed by the Communistrs -- not the
American bombing. Extensive evidence to the contrary,
including eyewitness reports and books by French and
American correspondents and observers long familiar
with Cambodia (e.g., Richard Dudman, Serge Thion,
J.C. Pomonti, Charles Meyer) is never cited. Nor do
they try to account for the amazingly rapid growth of the
revolutionary forces from 1969 to 1973, as attested by
U.S. intelligence and as is obvious from the unfolding
events themselves.
Their quotes, where they can be checked, are no more
reliable. Thus they claim that Ponchaud attributes to a
Khmer Rouge official the statement that people expelled
from the cities "are no longer needed, and local chiefs
are free to dispose of them as they please," implying that
local chiefs are free to kill them. But Ponchaud's first
report on this (Le Monde, February 18, 1976) quotes a
military chief as stating that they "are left to the absolute
discretion of the local authorities," which implies nothing
of the sort.
Well actually it does imply that. Furthermore we have ample
confirmatory evidence from numerous source that people of very low
rank in the army had authority to execute civilians on the spot
without any need to refer the matter to an officer.
Alexander J Russell
In article <5r4rj0$r...@panix2.panix.com>, g...@panix.com says...
>
>ale...@uniserve.com (Alexander J Russell):
>| Why is capitalism's time almost up?
>| What is wrong with it? why is it failing, and no one else noticed?
>
>Capitalism (as we know it) is among other things a system of
>social domination in which the ruling or leading class are
>the bourgeoisie, people who have power because they possess
>or manage capital. Clearly, capital confers this power only
>as long as it is scarce -- if it becomes too plentiful and
>widespread, it can no longer be used as a tool of social
>domination.
>
>Human powers of production are increasing exponentially.
>Therefore, either they will overwhelm all modes of waste and
>consumption, among other things ending capital scarcity, or
>at least the system will become too unstable to persist.
>
>| What will take its place?
>| Why will this new system be better?
>
>I have about as much idea of what is to succeed capitalism
>as a 12th-century artisan had of what was going to succeed
>feudalism, or what to call it. Probably to us it would
>(will?) look like anarchy, because the social relations
>we're familiar with will disappear.
> }"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
>-----------------------------------------------
>NOTE: if your ISP permits junkmailing, you will
>probably not be able to reach me by email.
You are correct, but I wouldn't call 200 to 500 years 'soon'.
Also, those in power tend to cling tenaciously to their privleges.
How long do you feel it will take technology to make production of all human
wants and needs virtually free?
Paul Zukowski
>ale...@uniserve.com (Alexander J Russell):
>| Why is capitalism's time almost up?
>| What is wrong with it? why is it failing, and no one else noticed?
>
>Capitalism (as we know it) is among other things a system of
>social domination in which the ruling or leading class are
>the bourgeoisie, people who have power because they possess
>or manage capital. Clearly, capital confers this power only
>as long as it is scarce -- if it becomes too plentiful and
>widespread, it can no longer be used as a tool of social
>domination.
Capitalism allows anyone who is able and willing to make it to the top.
Allows for the highest standard of living for the vast majority of people in it.
Earily starters from the 3rd world is already to get the bump up.
>
>Human powers of production are increasing exponentially.
>Therefore, either they will overwhelm all modes of waste and
>consumption, among other things ending capital scarcity, or
>at least the system will become too unstable to persist.
If this is the case, please support your claims.
I see Capitalism growing across the world. ie Eastern Europe, former USSR, China
etc.
>
>| What will take its place?
>| Why will this new system be better?
>
>I have about as much idea of what is to succeed capitalism
>as a 12th-century artisan had of what was going to succeed
>feudalism, or what to call it. Probably to us it would
>(will?) look like anarchy, because the social relations
>we're familiar with will disappear.
>--
--
To get random signatures put text files into a folder called ³Random Signatures² into your Preferences folder.
Caesar
> Human powers of production are increasing exponentially.
> Therefore, either they will overwhelm all modes of waste and
> consumption, among other things ending capital scarcity, or
> at least the system will become too unstable to persist.
I'm not sure if what you predict will ever happen. Maybe there's
a limit to production, beyond which the environment would be
severely damaged.
Anyway, couldn't a capitalist system with a large welfare state
(e.g. Scandinavian nations) maintain itself for longer, because
it will be able to stimulate consumption by redistributing
income from the richer to the poorer income groups ?
--
from Cae...@augur.demon.co.uk
"Today is the tommorrow that you worried about yesterday"
Boris Stremlin
On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, James A. Donald wrote:
> Socialists have murdered about one hundred million people during the
> twentieth century in an effort to suppress property rights.
>
> Hardly a mere paranoid fantasy.
>
Is everyone who was killed in a self-avowedly socialist state a vicitim of
socialism? Does this include combat deaths in WW II? Would you then
consider casualties from the U.S., France, Britain, Japan, Germany, etc.
as victims of capitalism? How about people who were killed by
"capitalist" and "right-wing" regimes? Even if we exclude pre-20th
century capitalist killing fields (the extermination of the Indians and
the Middle Passage are only the grossest examples), what do you think the
following list adds up to (how many millions?)
-Deaths in non-socialist states as a result of the 1st and 2nd World Wars
-The Holocaust
-The Vietnam war (over 1,000,000 Vietnamese casualties caused by
during the period of American involvement alone - now add the
French)
-people killed by rightist regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil,
Argentina, Chile, Greece, Zaire, South Africa and Indonesia, to
name just some post-War regimes allied with the U.S.
> the effort to suppress property rights is the by far the largest cause
>of mass murder, vastly exceeding race, religion, etc. Indeed it
> somewhat outweighs all other motivations for democide put together.
How exactly were "capitalist" regimes respecting the property rights of
their victims? Is it OK to deny the property rights of people in
practice if you uphold them in theory. Does that automatically make
murder by capitalists morally superior to murder by socialists?
And if you have a problem with my describing the above deaths as caused by
capitalism, perhaps you would not mind defining capitalism and socialism
for us (this goes for the rest of you free-marketers, and not a few
socialists, as well). It would really help center this discussion. So
far, I have not seen a single historical example of "capitalist" society
from any of you.
Boris Stremlin
bc7...@binghamton.edu
James A. Donald
> > Socialists have murdered about one hundred million people during the
> > twentieth century in an effort to suppress property rights.
Boris Stremlin <bc7...@binghamton.edu> wrote:
> Is everyone who was killed in a self-avowedly socialist state a vicitim of
> socialism?
If the murders were done in order to obtain collective ownership the
means of production, which is the great majority of the murders done
in communist countries, then plainly those murdered were victims of
socialism
> Does this include combat deaths in WW II?
No. Deaths in war during the twentieth century have been utterly
insignificant compared to government democide of their own subjects.
It is a lot easier to kill unarmed people who are subject to your
authority than it is to kill people who are shooting back.
I am going by R.J. Rummel's estimates, (90 million for China and the
Soviet Union alone) which seem pretty accurate in those cases that I
have some knowledge of. For example his figures on Cambodia agree
pretty well with those endorsed by Sophal, who presumably knows what
he is talking about http://www.princeton.edu/~sophal/
> -Deaths in non-socialist states as a result of the 1st and 2nd World Wars
> -The Holocaust
You may not regard Hitler as a socialist, but plainly he was strongly
anti capitalist.
> -The Vietnam war (over 1,000,000 Vietnamese casualties caused by
> during the period of American involvement alone - now add the
> French)
Two million more likely, but surely both sides were doing the killing,
and anyway, that was war, not murder.
> -people killed by rightist regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala,
> Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Greece, Zaire, South Africa
Utterly insignificant. For example Pinochet murdered three thousand.
If a communist ruler had murdered a mere three thousand the press
would hail him as a saintly pacifist.
> and Indonesia, to
> name just some post-War regimes allied with the U.S.
Indonesia was an enemy of the US at the time that it committed
numerous murders. On this issue, Chomsky simply lies, as he so often
does. (I expect if you read him carefully and legalistically, he does
not actually come out and lie that Indonesia was a US ally, he just
use language that will lead the reader to believe that Indonesia was a
US ally at the time, without actually saying in so many words that
Indonesia was an ally, thus preserving deniability, as usual.)
If we look at murderous regimes that actually were allies of the US,
like South Korea, we observe that their comparatively trivial crimes
received vastly disproportionate publicity to the crimes committed by
enemies of the US such as Indonesia, and Cambodia, publicity
disproportionate by a factor of a thousand.
Accuracy in Media report, November 1977, Part I, No. 21, p. 2.
Irvine derived from the Television News Index and Abstracts a
statistical table on media coverage of human rights in Chile, South
Korea, North Korea, Cuba and Cambodia. The news organizations covered
were the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the three television
networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. The findings were startling.[198] The
table covers 1976, and had by then passed the first anniversary of the
evacuation of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge. In table 4.1, the reader
will see that contrariwise to the Porter-Hildebrand-Chomsky-Herman
claims, the New York Time and Washington Post published four and nine
stories on human rights in Cambodia, respectively.
Table 4.1: Human Rights in the News 1976
Chile South Korea North Korea Cuba Cambodia
New York Times 66 61 0 3 4
Washington 58 24 1 4 9
Post
Sub-total 124 85 1 7 13
ABC 5 2 0 0 1
CBS 5 3 0 0 2
NBC 3 0 0 0 0
Sub-total 13 5 0 0 3
Total 137 90 1 7 16
From which we may conclude that the life of a suspected communist is
worth ten thousand times as much as the life of an evil capitalist,
since the anti socialist countries in the above listing murdered less
than a thousandth as many, and received more than ten times as much
unfavorable publicity.
Actually this wildly one sided coverage is not really evidence of
bias, rather it is man-bites dog. When communists murder millions, it
is not news. Everyone knows that communists are sadistic mass
murderers. Why would they be communists if they did not intend to
terrorize, destroy, and murder? But when anti socialists murder
thousands, it very definitely is news, because it is so very unusual,
because in any country that socializes the means of production the
murder of millions is ho hum and routine, and to be expected, and
hence is not news, just as dog-bites-man is not news, but when anti
socialists commit murder it is unusual and startling, so, like
man-bites-dog, it is news.
Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin
Alexander J Russell wrote in talk.politics.theory:
>In article <5r4rj0$r...@panix2.panix.com>, g...@panix.com says...
>>
>>ale...@uniserve.com (Alexander J Russell):
>>| Why is capitalism's time almost up?
>>| What is wrong with it? why is it failing, and no one else noticed?
>>
>>Capitalism (as we know it) is among other things a system of
>>social domination in which the ruling or leading class are
>>the bourgeoisie, people who have power because they possess
>>or manage capital. Clearly, capital confers this power only
>>as long as it is scarce -- if it becomes too plentiful and
>>widespread, it can no longer be used as a tool of social
>>domination.
>>
>>Human powers of production are increasing exponentially.
>>Therefore, either they will overwhelm all modes of waste and
>>consumption, among other things ending capital scarcity, or
>>at least the system will become too unstable to persist.
>>
>>| What will take its place?
>>| Why will this new system be better?
>>
>>I have about as much idea of what is to succeed capitalism
>>as a 12th-century artisan had of what was going to succeed
>>feudalism, or what to call it. Probably to us it would
>>(will?) look like anarchy, because the social relations
>>we're familiar with will disappear.
>>--
>> }"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
>>-----------------------------------------------
>>NOTE: if your ISP permits junkmailing, you will
>>probably not be able to reach me by email.
>
>You are correct, but I wouldn't call 200 to 500 years 'soon'.
>Also, those in power tend to cling tenaciously to their privleges.
>
>How long do you feel it will take technology to make production of all human
>wants and needs virtually free?
"Virtually" free?
As compared to when?
As compared to the situation that existed in 1600 -- we should achieve
this state by 1850 at the latest.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Pursuant to US Code, Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, ß227,
any and all nonsolicited commercial E-mail sent to this address
is subject to a download and archival fee in the amount of $500
US. E-mailing denotes acceptance of these terms.
Alexander J Russell
In article <33d81805...@news.blarg.net>, postm...@127.0.0.1 says...
>
>Alexander J Russell wrote in talk.politics.theory:
>
>>In article <5r4rj0$r...@panix2.panix.com>, g...@panix.com says...
>>>
>>>ale...@uniserve.com (Alexander J Russell):
>>>| Why is capitalism's time almost up?
>>>| What is wrong with it? why is it failing, and no one else noticed?
>>>
>
>>>Human powers of production are increasing exponentially.
>>>Therefore, either they will overwhelm all modes of waste and
>>>consumption, among other things ending capital scarcity, or
>>>at least the system will become too unstable to persist.
>>>
>>>| What will take its place?
>>>| Why will this new system be better?
>>>
>>>I have about as much idea of what is to succeed capitalism
>>>as a 12th-century artisan had of what was going to succeed
>>>feudalism, or what to call it. Probably to us it would
>>>(will?) look like anarchy, because the social relations
>>>we're familiar with will disappear.
>>>--
>>> }"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
>>>-----------------------------------------------
>>>NOTE: if your ISP permits junkmailing, you will
>>>probably not be able to reach me by email.
>>
>>You are correct, but I wouldn't call 200 to 500 years 'soon'.
>>Also, those in power tend to cling tenaciously to their privleges.
>>
>>How long do you feel it will take technology to make production of all human
>>wants and needs virtually free?
>
>"Virtually" free?
>
>As compared to when?
>
>As compared to the situation that existed in 1600 -- we should achieve
>this state by 1850 at the latest.
Good point. Average North American on welfare lives better than some 11 century
royalty (year round fresh fruit, central heating, indoor plumbing, music,
medical care, etc...)
To the point where anything anyone can think of can be produced by automated
labour using cheap power, so that all things are so cheap, free realy, that
capitalism collapses. I would guess 2 to 5 hundred years.
>--------------------------------------------------------------
>Pursuant to US Code, Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, ß227,
>any and all nonsolicited commercial E-mail sent to this address
>is subject to a download and archival fee in the amount of $500
>US. E-mailing denotes acceptance of these terms.
--
Mike Huben
In article <5r91h2$pr6$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>No. Deaths in war during the twentieth century have been utterly
>insignificant compared to government democide of their own subjects.
>It is a lot easier to kill unarmed people who are subject to your
>authority than it is to kill people who are shooting back.
>
>I am going by R.J. Rummel's estimates, (90 million for China and the
>Soviet Union alone) which seem pretty accurate in those cases that I
>have some knowledge of. For example his figures on Cambodia agree
>pretty well with those endorsed by Sophal, who presumably knows what
>he is talking about http://www.princeton.edu/~sophal/
Here is a classic James Donald conflation of all governments together
to misdirect attention from the true cause of all those millions of
deaths.
The true cause is private ownership, in this case of states, as opposed
to socialist ownership of states.
Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Amin (the list is huge) were all
either private owners of states or heads of parties that owned states.
Socialist ownership of states, usually called democracy or
representative democracy does NOT result in significant government
democide: for example, the rates in the US, Commonwealth nations,
and most other democracies without single-party dominance are
much lower than the rates of private homicide.
This sort of lumping of all states together by James Donald makes no
distinction between Jefferson and Stalin: most of us know better.
I'm going to have to add this argument to the Non-Libertarian FAQ.
Mike Huben mhu...@world.std.com http://world.std.com/~mhuben/
For rebuttals to libertarian arguments, check out:
Critiques of Libertarianism http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html
Liberalism Resurgent http://www.scruz.net/~kangaroo/tenets.htm
The evolution of government from its medieval, Mafia-like character to that
embodying modern legal institutions and instruments is a major part of the
history of freedom. It is a part that tends to be obscured or ignored
because of the myopic vision of many economists, who persist in modeling
government as nothing more than a gigantic form of theft and income
redistribution.
Douglass North
C. Petersen
In article <EDvwA...@world.std.com>, Mike Huben <mhu...@world.std.com> wrote:
>In article <5r91h2$pr6$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,
>James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>>insignificant compared to government democide of their own subjects.
>>It is a lot easier to kill unarmed people who are subject to your
>>authority than it is to kill people who are shooting back.
>>
>>I am going by R.J. Rummel's estimates, (90 million for China and the
>>Soviet Union alone) which seem pretty accurate in those cases that I
>>have some knowledge of. For example his figures on Cambodia agree
>>pretty well with those endorsed by Sophal, who presumably knows what
>>he is talking about http://www.princeton.edu/~sophal/
>
Sihanouk was an evil person too. His name gets buried in most quick
summaries of world history that are taught in high schools. They didn't
even go past 1960 in my classes. But that doesn't rationalize the hundreds
of thousands of people killed in US bombing, and Pol Pot was worse.
However, if we are to adopt this principle that there are two possible
political camps, the left wing and the right wing, and any individual who
is a member of one side is automatically grouped with all other members of
that side, then the right wing side surely has little to be proud of
during the history of the United States. Almost all developments which
americans are unanimously supported in retrospect, are progressive
developments. Let us take a quick jaunt:
during the revolution, the left winger revolutionaries fought the
right winger tories and they won. this was good. Liberals such as Thomas
Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Patrick Henry inspired the declaration of
independence and the constitution with the bill of rights. More
conservative oriented people such as Hamilton wanted to limit individual
rights to a greater degree.
Big government liberal Abraham Lincoln lead the civil war to free
the slaves and oppose states rights. (I don't care if he was a republican.
political platforms change every year).
During the industrial revolution, right wingers worked people in
factories up to 16 hours a day for low pay, including young children.
Progressives got government laws against unfair labor practices, won the
right to unionize, got child labor laws, got public schooling.
Right wingers in an unregulated stock market caused the
depression. Coolidge made it worse. Big gov't liberal Roosevelt (plus
WWII, a war against right wingers) was largely responsible for ending the
depression, rather than regular free market forces. Social security, an
extremely popular program, was started which is responsible for nearly
eliminating poverty among the elderly.
Left wingers fought to end institutionalized racial and sexual
discrimination. Right wingers, including current chairmen of the defense
and foreign relations committees, Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond,
filibustered against this and committed numerous acts of violence against
minorities. Left wingers won the philosophical and legal argument.
What success of any consequence has the right wing had?
--
Christine Petersen
Boris Stremlin
On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, James A. Donald wrote:
> > > Socialists have murdered about one hundred million people during the
> > > twentieth century in an effort to suppress property rights.
>
> Boris Stremlin <bc7...@binghamton.edu> wrote:
> > Is everyone who was killed in a self-avowedly socialist state a vicitim of
> > socialism?
>
> If the murders were done in order to obtain collective ownership the
> means of production, which is the great majority of the murders done
> in communist countries, then plainly those murdered were victims of
> socialism
>
You are going to have a hard time proving that murders in socialist
countries were in their majority committed to "obtain collective ownership
of production". In the case of mass peasant starvation in the early 30's,
the explicit goal was the creation of _state_ ownership of production
(why would Stalin be interested in collective ownership of production
after he had put an end to the so-called uravnilovka - equality in wages
- ?) In the case of the purges of the late 30's and beyond, people were
turned in for personal and career reasons - it is no accident that the
majority of the old Bolsheviks, some of whom still believed in collective
ownership, were the first to go.
> > Does this include combat deaths in WW II?
> No. Deaths in war during the twentieth century have been utterly
> insignificant compared to government democide of their own subjects.
> It is a lot easier to kill unarmed people who are subject to your
> authority than it is to kill people who are shooting back.
I hope you are not serious. Try tabulating combat deaths (plus deaths of
civilians directly effected by war) for the century as a whole. USSR +
Germany in the Second World War alone exceed 30 million. I am also not
sure why you exclude combat deaths from consideration. In most cases,
wars are started by imperialist/territorialist ambitions, which
necessarily involves denying the "property rights" of others. Having
slaves with guns shoot at each other for the interests of propertied
elites lacks moral justification to the same degree as shooting unarmed
slaves. You may also consider the fact that in many cases one of the
combatants is far better armed than the other (US vs. the Vietnamese, or
the Iraquis, for instance), creating a situation not unlike the one where
people are being shot in the back (B-52's dropping Daisycutters on
defenseless Iraqui soldiers in bunkers, bombing of Rotterdam, London,
Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki during WWII as well). In some cases,
*unarmed* soldiers were sent to the front as well - you may have heard
that in many Russian regiments during WWI only half the soldiers carried
rifles (the other half were instructed to utilize those of their fallen
comrades). Many also lacked shoes.
> I am going by R.J. Rummel's estimates, (90 million for China and the
> Soviet Union alone) which seem pretty accurate in those cases that I
> have some knowledge of. For example his figures on Cambodia agree
> pretty well with those endorsed by Sophal, who presumably knows what
> he is talking about http://www.princeton.edu/~sophal/
In my experience, deaths attributed to the Soviet regime usually include
those which happened as a direct result of the War. Are you sure they
are not included in your figure? I will look up your source if you give
me more documentation (title and year).
> > -Deaths in non-socialist states as a result of the 1st and 2nd World Wars
> > -The Holocaust
>
> You may not regard Hitler as a socialist, but plainly he was strongly
> anti capitalist.
Whatever that means. You certainly cannot accuse Hitler of trying to
institute collective ownership of production. The case of major
industrialists collaborating with Hitler is well documented (see, for
instance, Wm. Manchester's _The Arms of Krupp_ [Little and Brown 1964]) -
they certainly didn't do it in opposition to their self-interests.>
> > -The Vietnam war (over 1,000,000 Vietnamese casualties caused by
> > during the period of American involvement alone - now add the
> > French)
>
> Two million more likely, but surely both sides were doing the killing,
> and anyway, that was war, not murder.
How many were killed by the US and its South Vietnamese ally? How many
due to superior equipment? Is a peasant with a rifle the equivalent of a
B-52 dropping bombs. And the U.S. has not even considered apologizing, as
governments succeeding criminal regimes are often forced to do.
> >-people killed by rightist regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala,
> >Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Greece, Zaire, South Africa
> Utterly insignificant. For example Pinochet murdered three thousand.
> If a communist ruler had murdered a mere three thousand the press
> would hail him as a saintly pacifist.
>
> > and Indonesia, to
> > name just some post-War regimes allied with the U.S.
>
> Indonesia was an enemy of the US at the time that it committed
> numerous murders. On this issue, Chomsky simply lies, as he so often
> does. (I expect if you read him carefully and legalistically, he does
> not actually come out and lie that Indonesia was a US ally, he just
> use language that will lead the reader to believe that Indonesia was a
> US ally at the time, without actually saying in so many words that
> Indonesia was an ally, thus preserving deniability, as usual.)
I will look up how many political murders took place under Sukarno and
how many under Sukharto, but the issue is irrelevant to the discussion.
Neither one was a self-avowedly socialist regime dedicated to the
establishment of collective ownership of production (again, your
criterion). You are correct that the number of political murders in
Chile was low by the standards of Soviet/CCP/Nazi regimes, but you are
dead wrong on Guatemala, which killed over 70,000 people since 1950 (how
much is that as a percentage of its population?). Furthermore, if a
government bears responsibility for supporting murderous regimes for
geopolitical reasons, the U.S. must accept at least some of the
responsibility for the Khmer Rouge, whom it supplied with weapons
(Communist China was also a U.S. ally after 1972, by the way). So your
following comment is off the mark again.
> If we look at murderous regimes that actually were allies of the US,
>like South Korea, we observe that their comparatively trivial crimes
> received vastly disproportionate publicity to the crimes committed by
> enemies of the US such as Indonesia, and Cambodia, publicity
> disproportionate by a factor of a thousand.
[snipped statistics about how U.S. media distorts attrocities perpetrated
by "capitalist regimes" out of proportion...]
> From which we may conclude that the life of a suspected communist is
> worth ten thousand times as much as the life of an evil capitalist,
> since the anti socialist countries in the above listing murdered less
> than a thousandth as many, and received more than ten times as much
> unfavorable publicity.
> Actually this wildly one sided coverage is not really evidence of
> bias, rather it is man-bites dog. When communists murder millions, it
> is not news. Everyone knows that communists are sadistic mass
> murderers. Why would they be communists if they did not intend to
> terrorize, destroy, and murder? But when anti socialists murder
> thousands, it very definitely is news, because it is so very unusual,
> because in any country that socializes the means of production the
> murder of millions is ho hum and routine, and to be expected, and
> hence is not news, just as dog-bites-man is not news, but when anti
> socialists commit murder it is unusual and startling, so, like
> man-bites-dog, it is news.
Brilliant mathematico-ideological turn. Bravo. Worthy of a real
Stalinist. Unfortunately, you've missed the point. I never claimed
that e.g. S.Korea killed more people than e.g. N. Korea. What I did
claim is that throughout the century, at least as many people have been
sent to their deaths by non-socialist regimes as by socialist regimes. I
continue to stand by that claim. Adding together deaths caused by wars
(your exclusion of wars is not convincing for reasons given above),
famines caused by non-socialist regimes (a massive famine in India under
British rule was recently brought up by someone on this newsgroup, but
add also famine deaths in China prior to the Communist takeover in 1949,
Bangladesh in the early 70's, etc.). Then add extermination campaigns
against Armenians by Ataturk, against Jews et al by Hitler, against Serbs
et al by the Croatian Ustashes (and against Croats et al by Serb
Chetniks), against Chinese and South-East Asians by the Japanese).
Finally, add the "utterly insignificant" deaths inflicted by
authoritarian regimes in the post-War era. Is the picture becoming
clearer? I remind you that I'm excluding extermination/enslavement of
whole populations prior to this century, which is not exactly fair, since
that is how the "advanced Western countries" accumulated their wealth.
Your statement that "everyone knows that communists are sadistic mass
murderers" directly implicates millions of people who believe in
collective ownership of the means of production, but who have never been
executioners, in mass murder. Your refusal to do the same with people
who have faith in other things, private property in the same, for
instance, is the height of hypocrisy. In other words, only those who
believe that the system currently run by the U.S.is unjust are
automatically dismissed as "sadistic mass murderers". Similarly, only
those regimes which have challenged the U.S. geopolitically (USSR, Nazi
Germany, Communist China) are awarded the epithet "socialist" by you - in
other words, those countries that have tried to consolidate their national
economy to compete with Western powers. The current fashion for equating
socialism with Stalin/Mao and Stalin/Mao with the Antichrist not only
distorts history, but it fails to prevent similar policies from being
implemented for other raisons d'etat ("no one is worse than Stalin/Mao, so
their crimes stand alone by definition, and can never be repeated by
anyone who does not believe as they did..."
Incidentally, the policies of the current "capitalist" Russian government
have impacted on the Russian population with nearly Stalinesque
proportions. The decline of male life expectancy to 58 and the consequent
rise of the death rate to the point where it exceeds the birth rate by
500,000 every year spells demographic catastrophe for Russia. And look,
ma, no guns! It's OK, though, since the sacred institutions of a modern
economy are being upheld...
Boris Stremlin
bc7...@binghamton.edu
Boris Stremlin
On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Mike Huben wrote:
> In article <5r91h2$pr6$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,
> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> >No. Deaths in war during the twentieth century have been utterly
> >insignificant compared to government democide of their own subjects.
> >It is a lot easier to kill unarmed people who are subject to your
> >authority than it is to kill people who are shooting back.
> >
> >I am going by R.J. Rummel's estimates, (90 million for China and the
> >Soviet Union alone) which seem pretty accurate in those cases that I
> >have some knowledge of. For example his figures on Cambodia agree
> >pretty well with those endorsed by Sophal, who presumably knows what
> >he is talking about http://www.princeton.edu/~sophal/
>
> Here is a classic James Donald conflation of all governments together
> to misdirect attention from the true cause of all those millions of
> deaths.
>
> The true cause is private ownership, in this case of states, as opposed
> to socialist ownership of states.
>
> Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Amin (the list is huge) were all
> either private owners of states or heads of parties that owned states.
Yes, that is the general idea. States in the interstate system are
private competitors for capital.
>
> Socialist ownership of states, usually called democracy or
> representative democracy does NOT result in significant government
> democide: for example, the rates in the US, Commonwealth nations,
> and most other democracies without single-party dominance are
> much lower than the rates of private homicide.
>
> This sort of lumping of all states together by James Donald makes no
> distinction between Jefferson and Stalin: most of us know better.
>
> I'm going to have to add this argument to the Non-Libertarian FAQ.
The argument being made by James Donald is more chauvinistic than
libertarian. For this reason, he does not lump Stalin with
Jefferson, but rather with Hitler. Once all statist leaders who
challenged U.S. hegemoony can be described as "socialist", then it's not
too hard to proclaim socialists as the prime criminals of the century.
> Mike Huben mhu...@world.std.com http://world.std.com/~mhuben/
>
> For rebuttals to libertarian arguments, check out:
> Critiques of Libertarianism http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html
> Liberalism Resurgent http://www.scruz.net/~kangaroo/tenets.htm
>
> The evolution of government from its medieval, Mafia-like character to that
> embodying modern legal institutions and instruments is a major part of the
> history of freedom. It is a part that tends to be obscured or ignored
> because of the myopic vision of many economists, who persist in modeling
> government as nothing more than a gigantic form of theft and income
> redistribution.
> Douglass North
>
>
Boris Stremlin
bc7...@binghamton.edu
James A. Donald
mhu...@world.std.com (Mike Huben) wrote:
> Here is a classic James Donald conflation of all governments together
> to misdirect attention from the true cause of all those millions of
> deaths.
>
> The true cause is private ownership, in this case of states, as opposed
> to socialist ownership of states.
>
> Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Amin (the list is huge) were all
> either private owners of states or heads of parties that owned states.
> representative democracy does NOT result in significant government
> democide:
OK then, let us compare like with like: Let us compare South Korea
under the generals with North Korea under the great leader, Cambodia
under Sihanouk with Cambodia under Pol Pot, Chile under Pinochet with
Cuba under Castro, Taiwan under the nationalist dictatorship, with
China under the communist dictatorship, Ho Chi Minh's merciless terror
against the peasants with the various South Vietnamese regimes.
The kill ratio is typically about five hundred to one.
It is not democracy that makes the difference, it is capitalism that
makes the difference, and capitalism which makes democracy possible.
When democracies go too far in destroying capitalism, they collapse
like a man sawing off the tree limb on which he sits.
The fact that democracies do not commit democide is not because they
are democracies, but because both democracy and the absence of
democide have a common cause: Private property rights.
James A. Donald
Undoubtedly, but he only found it necessary to torture and massacre
real, suspected, and potential communists, of whom there are
considerably fewer than real, suspected, and potential property
owners.
People tend to be a lot more stubborn about giving up their property
than giving up membership in subversive organizations, hence the scale
of terror is necessarily vastly greater.
J.D. Patterson
Boris Stremlin wrote in article ...
>On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, James A. Donald wrote:
>
>> Socialists have murdered about one hundred million people during the
>> twentieth century in an effort to suppress property rights.
>>
>> Hardly a mere paranoid fantasy.
>>
>Is everyone who was killed in a self-avowedly socialist state a vicitim of
>socialism? Does this include combat deaths in WW II? Would you then
>consider casualties from the U.S., France, Britain, Japan, Germany, etc.
>as victims of capitalism? How about people who were killed by
>"capitalist" and "right-wing" regimes? Even if we exclude pre-20th
>century capitalist killing fields (the extermination of the Indians and
>the Middle Passage are only the grossest examples), what do you think the
>following list adds up to (how many millions?)
>
>-Deaths in non-socialist states as a result of the 1st and 2nd World Wars
>-The Holocaust
>-The Vietnam war (over 1,000,000 Vietnamese casualties caused by
> during the period of American involvement alone - now add the
> French)
>-people killed by rightist regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil,
> Argentina, Chile, Greece, Zaire, South Africa and Indonesia, to
> name just some post-War regimes allied with the U.S.
>
>> the effort to suppress property rights is the by far the largest cause
>>of mass murder, vastly exceeding race, religion, etc. Indeed it
>> somewhat outweighs all other motivations for democide put together.
>
>How exactly were "capitalist" regimes respecting the property rights of
>their victims? Is it OK to deny the property rights of people in
>practice if you uphold them in theory. Does that automatically make
>murder by capitalists morally superior to murder by socialists?
>
>And if you have a problem with my describing the above deaths as caused by
>capitalism, perhaps you would not mind defining capitalism and socialism
>for us (this goes for the rest of you free-marketers, and not a few
>socialists, as well). It would really help center this discussion. So
>far, I have not seen a single historical example of "capitalist" society
>from any of you.
>
>Boris Stremlin
>bc7...@binghamton.edu
Read on:
A Discourse On Political Dissent
(c) J.D Patterson & DOULOS PRODUCTIONS 1997
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
-Samuel Johnson (1709-84), English author, lexicographer.
"The Church confesses that she has witnessed the lawless application of
brutal force, the physical and spiritual suffering of countless innocent
people, oppression, hatred and murder, and that she has not raised her voice
on behalf of the victims and has not found ways to hasten to their aid. She
is guilty of the deaths of the weakest and most defenseless brothers of
Jesus Christ."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer ( Ethics )
To express in detail discontent and define political dissent in today's
American society is tantamount to heresy throughout much of Christendom. The
recent events in which hundreds of innocents were killed by the misguided
actions of a select few in Oklahoma City can only be deemed as collateral
damage. This dispassionate way of looking at this incident is not an attempt
to justify, but only to state with reason that we live in a world where
actions such as these occur as a common everyday practice. That it took
place in America makes it no more or less evil than other acts of violence
which have been perpetrated by the government itself (read: Kent State,
Vietnam, Gulf War, etc.). The American government took into account the
death of innocents in it's decision to war with other countries. It even
considered the death of it's own citizens in fighting "wars" that could not
be won as collateral damage. We must realize, that however abhorrent, that
innocents caught in the crossfire is a reality.
Defining steps which must be taken to stop the atrocities that take place
with legal protection and call for civil disobedience is essential. I speak
specifically of the legalization of late term abortions. This act was made
legal in 1973 by an erroneous Supreme Court ruling (ROE v. WADE). We are not
speaking about whether there is a time and place for abortion in general.
The criteria for therapeutically terminating a pregnancy is a separate
subject. What we are concerned with here is plain and simply stated in one
word; genocide. There is a distinct parallel of people performing genocide
and the people involved in the above stated actions against the American
government; both are punishable and subject to the penalty of death.
It is the habit of the people of the past several generations to recount the
mass slaughter of groups of people such as the Jews, Gypsies and
"undesirables" of Nazi Germany. The political "purges" of these same groups
of people as well as political dissidents under the former USSR and most
recently religious and ethnic "cleansing" in Bosnia have been met with
distaste and dishonor. Then why has not the slaughter of full term babies
and viable fetal lives met with the same resistance?
The past eighteen years of Christians becoming political bedfellows with the
current political parties has virtually rendered the dissent of many
conscientious Christians impotent. Compromise with the Republican party,
performed by the prominent figureheads of the "Christian" right, give more
purpose for secular society to disavow itself with any reason that may lie
in Christian virtue. Many of the actions taken by Christian conservatives
has been trying to legislate the whole of morality on the entire US society.
These actions are both disingenuous and ill-conceived. Christians who have
objected to close political associations or speak out against them, are
called liberal by fellow Christians. When declaring Christians finally cry,
"Enough!", secular society responds with taunts of being reactionary or
radical. It is clear that beginning now all actions taken by professing
Christians, though seen as political by secular society, should be taken as
acts of an apolitical nature. No allegiance should be given to any political
party. The government must be held in contempt of a morality higher than
itself. This was understood by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany. It was
understood by the political dissidents of the former Soviet Union. So, too,
must it be understood by the professing Christian church in American
society.
Civil disobedience of the past three to four decades has been rendered
ineffective by either Supreme Court rulings or by the tightened constraints
of local laws. Ideally civil disobedience should be practiced with
non-violence. This in most cases is the only appropriate way to practice
dissent. In order for non-violent methods of disobedience to work they must
have a profound effect economically or politically. The fact that the
current oligarchy controlling the country does not have the conscience to
act properly against blatant annihilation of human lives invalidates the
ballot box as a viable alternative.
Does this mean that we have reached a point where violence is the only
method by which we act? No, not in all cases. This may vary, however,
according to personal political ideologies. This is not a call for anarchy
or an incitement to violence. It is a call for each man to act upon his own
conscience; to object to what is morally wrong. It is a call for the
professing church to distance itself from the current political process and
act in a manner which respects protection for those who cannot protect
themselves. We must look at actions against the American government,
judicial system and institutions which support it as they are looked at by
those same bodies; disinterested with only a sense of what is personally
correct. Christians must realize that we are in a physical as well as
spiritual war against the world.
The argument that holding to these view points is seditious is held
primarily by those who fear loosing their sedentary lifestyles. Some
Christian's will respond that we are only to act in a manner that will not
draw criticism from secular society. It has been stated that a disciple of
Jesus Christ would not act in such a manner. This argument is null and void.
Jesus acted in a manner which drew criticism to Himself and His disciples.
They were seen as a threat to the norm of both the government and religious
society. When the disciples had experienced the risen Christ, they were
willing to die for their dissent.
The main problem that faces Christendom is obtaining a consensus as to what
is appropriate action. Before this can happen the bare and grisly facts of
life must be looked at neutrally. Former methods of reason and unproductive
acts of civil disobedience have failed to bring about the necessary changes
in laws. This only underlines the need for symposiums and think-tanks of
Christians where open and honest dialogue can take place. This dialogue must
then be analyzed from both sides, but always with the face of contempt
toward the institutions supporting the wholesale killing of viable lives.
Unfortunately a consensus will never be reached. The lack of many to look
impartially at life's troubles and the fears of government censor and
judgment will sadly cause many to shy away from earnest duty. Fear of loss
and political change will force many, who agree with the principles set
forth here, not to act. Much of this inaction was responsible for the
slaughter of many innocents in Nazi Germany. [JP2]
So also will the ardent cry for justice go unheard in the United States.
Why? We refuse to admit that the US government is part of the world system.
It is as unjust and pretentious as the of the current governments of China
and Palestine (the former Palestinian Liberation Organization and it's
factions). The inability to come to terms with this fact is a blinding light
to those who call themselves patriots. The founders of the current ruling
system in America began rebelling against the injustices perpetrated by the
government of England on the citizens of the colonies. Americans must now
realize that the US government is permitting unjust mass murder to take
place under the auspices of legality.
Civil disobedience is hard to define, both legally and as matter of personal
conscience. Francis Schaeffer in Christian Manifesto states "Anarchy is
never appropriate."
Anarchy is best defined as follows: The absence of any cohesive principle,
such as a common standard or purpose. The idea of civil disobedience must
be taken a step further than Schaeffer intended. The current judicial and
political system are guilty of eroding the cohesive principles set forth in
the US Constitution. This in and of itself is anarchy. Acts against these
injustices are therefore acts against an existing tyranny, since common
standards and purposes have been invalidated by the current governing body.
For example, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act
was signed into law in 1970. It was to be used to prosecute both Mafia
kingpins and white-collar criminals, such as Wall Street traders using
insider information. Leaders of the pro-life group OPERATION RESCUE were
prosecuted as conspirators for acts of extortion in their efforts to
organize protests against abortion clinics. The Supreme Court has recently
upheld lower court rulings against these non-violent acts of protest against
the whole of abortion laws using RICO as the basis for judgment.
If these rulings are taken to the logical extreme, people who protest any
action, whether against the government or private industry, can now be found
guilty of racketeering. As mentioned earlier civil disobedience must have an
economical or political impact on society to be effective. This quandary is
now set forth; what are viable acts that can influence and change the
current laws that allow late term abortions? There are many moral and
ethical dilemmas which arise as the result of this question. First, how do
Christians respond in the face of actions which will more than likely
involve collateral damage? Second, what consequences are we ready to suffer?
Schaeffer correctly states that if civil disobedience is to be practiced
that those who do so must be willing to suffer the results. Third, to what
extent are we willing to risk our dormant lifestyles which we justify behind
the facades of pacifism, misconstrued theology and patriotism? This last
question must first be answered before any person decides to take any
action.
Randall Terry, founder of OPERATION RESCUE had to not only suffer government
and societal censorship but make a complete lifestyle change as a result of
the action taken against him in the courts. The bottom line is that one must
be willing to accept major retribution from the current judicial and
political system and possibly from the Christian community, for any act of
dissent that is taken. The freedoms of the common man have been trampled so
that there is no longer refuge under Constitutional rights. The civil rights
as defined by the Constitution have been subjugated to the discrimination of
a select few while the masses of people are denied the liberties intended by
this document. In talking of civil disobedience we must take this into
account. Ignoring this facet of reality will only result in total disregard
for the need to change[JP3] the existing system.[JP4]
Another example of abuse and neglect of these rights can be seen way that
firearms have been doled out to a select few. The second amendment is clear
and concise: "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a
free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed." The right of immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority is
clearly stated. It is not contingent on future laws. It is plain and simply
a civil right. This concept of personal autonomy was the basis for the
current Constitutional government. Not only is this idea stated in the
Constitution but it is also implied in the Declaration of Independence.
Excessive use of force and violence characterize the actions of the FBI and
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), which have violated the
civil rights of many people. The murders that took place in Ruby Ridge,
Montana and Waco, Texas are examples of the totalitarian society which is
beginning to take shape in America. These two "law" enforcement groups have
sections of personnel armed better than and acting as brutal as the SS
squads of Nazi Germany. This is unconscionable. The ATF is a renegade police
agency run amok with bigoted, Neo-Nazi values. The fact that this was the
alleged motive for the bombing of the US federal building makes these acts
no less amoral. The fact that they were committed by and sanctioned acts of
the governing body of the US and that the focus on them has been diminished
significantly by the media and the masses of society exemplifies that we are
force fed information and accept it with little or no intellectual scrutiny.
These issues have been the rallying cry of the current militia movement. The
self proclaimed militias that have recently risen in many states are nothing
but fronts for Neo-Nazi and racist propaganda. Much of the motivation behind
these groups of elitist gun collectors has been propagandized as true
patriotism. Holding to viewpoints that put the blame on any group of people
because of ethnicity or religion is not acceptable. If there is to be a true
soldiery made up of citizens not associated with the current governing
bodies, race and religion must be overlooked. One fact that remains true in
the rhetoric of these groups is that there are Constitutional rights which
guarantee militias and private ownership of arms. These rights have been
twisted and consumed by a bevy of local laws which the Supreme Court fails
to recognize as illegal. It [JP5]will surely be argued that the existence
of the armed forces in the US invalidates the right to bear arms. Though the
idea and ownership of firearms is personally detestable, some may wish to
look at these laws as a possible beginning for the subsequent acts of civil
disobedience that should take place.
It is clear that actions taken will include acts of self defense which some
will perceive as unwarranted violence. We can no longer act as lemmings
following each other over the cliff to self destruction through inaction.
This is a call to arms; a call to protect one's self and family. It is call
to act justly in the face of injustice executed by an unjust government and
society. It is a call to uphold the Constitution of the US against the
forces which have blatantly disregarded the rights of the many to secure the
power of a select few. Malcolm X once stated, "I don't mean go out and get
violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run
into some nonviolence." In other words, whatever form of resistance you
return should be equal or greater than the resistance you meet in defying
the current authorities.
If we examine the last ten years of Christianity we have not been given
viable means of changing the law by our leaders. We see that outright
recalcitrance has never emerged as an option. It is clear that this is the
path which now must be followed to change the current laws. In doing so we
must never act without reason. But acts, covert in nature, must be taken to
subvert the current laws. A garrison of forces similar to the resistance
forces in Europe during Nazi occupation must now be formed. There is no
longer room to argue whether militant means of protest should be used.
The members of the ruling bodies who do not uphold the values set forth in
this document must be looked on with contempt and as bitter enemies. Any
means of diminishing their power and authority is now acceptable. The
penalty for their tacit approval of destruction of life shall carry the same
penalty as those who are committing the crimes; death. We must now consider
aggressive resistance to the laws of the US a norm until late term abortions
are outlawed. Those who practice these procedures are to be held as
criminals against humanity. Laws to pacify those disagreeing with this
treatise and that provide means for a "doctor" to do these procedures and
cover them up are not acceptable. These "doctors" and those who harbor them
in the safety net of legality will be tried as others who have committed
crimes against humanity. To give them the discretion and means to cover
crimes against defenseless children is akin to justification of the murders
of six million people in the concentration camps of the Nazi's. To ignore
that this type of judgment should be passed on those who practice and aid in
such acts is simply naivete, and if not naivete, it is self delusion.
It will surely be argued that a woman's rights will be violated in outlawing
such actions. If this argument is presented it must be disputed that the
woman is not defenseless in taking steps against preventing pregnancy. Birth
control alternatives are vast in this age of medicine. If a pregnant woman
does not feel that she is able to care for a baby, then adoption is the only
alternative. The issue is not so much the right of the mother, but the
rights of the unborn child. The mother exercised her rights in deciding to
have sex when the child was conceived. She had a choice at that time whether
or not to use birth control to prevent the pregnancy. It is insufferable to
allow the murder of a viable life.
The way in which late term abortions were legally brought into being must
now be looked at as fraud. As the early Nazi parties came into power through
intimidation and scandalous deviance, so also did the laws which take the
lives of viable fetuses. We must now look to dissolve the powers which have
the ability to control laws and annihilate them as they have done to the
poor and oppressed. All communities have fallen victim to their ideologies
of abolishing imperfection from the human race. These ideals are nothing but
ruses to keep the common people from knowing and understanding truth; that
all men are equal. Power structure and societal position are nothing. We are
not speaking of a form of Communism. We are speaking of the inherent
position of all people to exist and have equal rights. This may never be
possible in today's world because of the fallen nature of man himself. What
we must do though, is fight. Not for a utopian society, but for one which
strives toward the equality of all men, rich or poor, black, white or any
color. One which takes the power out of the hands of the unjust and puts it
into the hands of the[JP6] less unjust.
Let there be a new language spoken among the people. Let the noose of
oppression be put on the neck of the oppressors. If a man rules against the
protection of the innocent, let him suffer the same consequences. If he acts
justly, let others act justly toward him. If the face of a man who is in
power turns against protection of innocent lives, let him face the ultimate
judgment, that of paying with his own life and blood. The government now in
power shall no longer tell us who is guilty and worthy of our indignation.
The current bureaucracy has blood on it's hands and warrants our wrath.
Hypothetically, a president who vetoes a bill that protects the unborn is
one who is worthy of our judgment. This is just. So each individual must
decide in his heart how to respond to such an action. It must be determined
if this man has committed an insufferable injustice toward the innocent.
Each individual is now a judge and jury. If the verdict comes back guilty
with the penalty of death, let it be so. No longer must we listen to the
voices irrationality, those voices which restrain acts of justice. Pacifism
is not an option. Legitimate dissension shall now include all of the
possibilities that lie within human means, peaceful or violent.[JP7]
We have covered:
1) The call and reasons for civil disobedience.
2) The need for professing Christians to disassociate themselves from the
current political, judicial systems and institutions which support their
forms of tyranny.
3) The need of a soldiery made up of those who hold to like ideas to work
with or without weapons against the current government.[JP8]
4) A constitutional basis for all of the above.
5) New guidelines to follow to retaliate against injustices executed by the
existing government.
dckom
On Fri, 25 Jul 1997 01:59:38 GMT c.e., jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
wrote :
>
>> and Indonesia, to
>> name just some post-War regimes allied with the U.S.
>
>Indonesia was an enemy of the US at the time that it committed
>numerous murders. On this issue, Chomsky simply lies, as he so often
>does. (I expect if you read him carefully and legalistically, he does
>not actually come out and lie that Indonesia was a US ally, he just
>use language that will lead the reader to believe that Indonesia was a
>US ally at the time, without actually saying in so many words that
>Indonesia was an ally, thus preserving deniability, as usual.)
I assume you are speaking of the 1965 coup. To say Indonesia was not a U.S.
ally at the time is a bit disingenuous, to say the least. The Sukarno
government was hardly impecable in its human rights record, and was not
favored by the U.S. Since then, of course, the Suharto regime, put in power
by the coup, has been a staunch U.S. ally. And has continued to kill
political opponents.
David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Property is Theft!
Steal this Post!
James A. Donald
dc...@atlcom.net (dckom) wrote:
> Since then, of course, the Suharto regime, put in power
> by the coup, has been a staunch U.S. ally.
I exaggerated when I said Indonesia was an enemy. Suharto was indeed
pro western. But clearly Indonesia is not in the same category as,
for example, South Korea. It cannot be called an ally of the US when
it has no alliance, and when it excluded US ships from its waters.
McQ
Cae...@augur.demon.co.uk (Caesar) wrote:
>Anyway, couldn't a capitalist system with a large welfare state
>(e.g. Scandinavian nations) maintain itself for longer, because
>it will be able to stimulate consumption by redistributing
>income from the richer to the poorer income groups ?
The question is, at what point to the "richer" groups opt for the
ease of living enjoyed by the non-working or non-producing "poorer"
income groups? Afterall, if your goal is income equity, why not be on
the receiving end? And the best place to be on the receiving end is
the bottom...same result for the minimum of effort.
It would appear to be a self-defeating system.
McQ
_________________________
Remove one of the "i's" in "iix" and email away...
Don Ballanger
acqusition of capital and the freedom to apply it to the development
and improvement of that engine. But the point will come when the
quantitative and technical merits of that engine will be subject to the
qualitative needs of the society and the planet as a whole.
The idea of state economies being strictly "communist" and "private
enterprises" being free of state control and capitalist is ridiculous.
For example, during the Viet Nam War 67% of the GDP of the U.S. was
spent on the military. The Soviet GDP never reached 45% of the U.S.
GDP. At no time did this totolitarian pseudo-socialist state ever
even approach the kind of state funded "capitalism" that occurs in the
U.S. In fact the big problem in the U.S. right now is how to find an
ideological justification consistent with the present political regime
and the general state of affairs that does NOT involve spending
enormous sums of money on engines of death which, sadly, are among
the most effective means of accumulating capital while at the same
time being the most humanly inefficient of these mechanisms of wealth.
dckom
On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:55:49 GMT c.e., jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
wrote :
>dc...@atlcom.net (dckom) wrote:
>> Since then, of course, the Suharto regime, put in power
>> by the coup, has been a staunch U.S. ally.
>
>I exaggerated when I said Indonesia was an enemy. Suharto was indeed
>pro western. But clearly Indonesia is not in the same category as,
>for example, South Korea. It cannot be called an ally of the US when
>it has no alliance, and when it excluded US ships from its waters.
No alliance? Acording to the U.S. State Dept. web page, Indonesia, in 1996,
recived 71 million in aid from the United States, against a total of 5.2
million from all other sources. There appear to be no restrictions on
military sales. Indonesian troops are currently being trained at Fort
Benning.
And, it would appear there is no hesitation about taking Indonesian money
in the heights of U.S. politics. <That wasn't on the official web sites> ;)
If it's not a formal alliance, I think it would be fair to describe it as a
comfie working relationship.
When did they exclude U.S. ships?
And, lest we forget, Indonesia still carries out violent repression against
political opposition.
James A. Donald
Don Ballanger <boi...@idirect.com> wrote:
> The idea of state economies being strictly "communist" and "private
> For example, during the Viet Nam War 67% of the GDP of the U.S. was
> spent on the military.
Utter bunkum.
Possibly you mean 67% of federal government expenditure.
G*rd*n
Cae...@augur.demon.co.uk (Caesar) wrote:
| >Anyway, couldn't a capitalist system with a large welfare state
| >(e.g. Scandinavian nations) maintain itself for longer, because
| >it will be able to stimulate consumption by redistributing
| >income from the richer to the poorer income groups ?
mcq...@iix.netcom.com (McQ):
| The question is, at what point to the "richer" groups opt for the
| ease of living enjoyed by the non-working or non-producing "poorer"
| income groups? Afterall, if your goal is income equity, why not be on
| the receiving end? And the best place to be on the receiving end is
| the bottom...same result for the minimum of effort.
|
| It would appear to be a self-defeating system.
You mean income equality? (_Equity_ means fairness, which
in many people's opinion is _not_ equality.) In social
democrat arrangements, distribution of income to the poor
doesn't approach equality with other distributions. The
role of Welfare recipient is a sort of job involving low
activity, low morale, and low income. It can still provide
useful consumption, however -- all but the very most
depressed Welfarados will buy food and clothing and pay
rent if they have the money. It's hard to imagine a
hot-shot doctor or lawyer choosing this role.
Boris Stremlin
Exhibit 1
On Sun, 20 Jul 1997, James A. Donald wrote:
> You intend to kill me and everyone like me, just as Lenin plainly
> intended to kill Kerensky and everyone like him, and yet I do not
> shoot you, nor am I entitled to, and similarly Kerensky was not
> entitled to kill Lenin, and refrained from doing so.
>
> Now if you actually got started making socialism happen, then I would
> be entitled to shoot you, and I would certainly attempt to do so
This isn't advocating murder? How so? One of the foci of this discussion
has revolved around defining what socialism, and you clearly feel at
liberty to define a Leninist as a murderer, any socialist as a Leninist,
and hence anyone who argues from socialist positions as a murderer, whom
you "would certainly attempt" to shoot.
Exhibit 2 upcoming...
Boris Stremlin
bc7...@binghamton.edu
Boris Stremlin
Exhibit 2
On Sat, 26 Jul 1997, James A. Donald wrote:
> ott...@u.washington.edu (C. Petersen) wrote:
> > Sihanouk was an evil person too.
>
> Undoubtedly, but he only found it necessary to torture and massacre
> real, suspected, and potential communists, of whom there are
> considerably fewer than real, suspected, and potential property
> owners.
The fact is that according to your own statement, he eliminated
communists *systematically*, exactly what you accuse socialists of doing.
But then, instead of extending your analysis of Sihanouk as evil to the
perpetrators of systematic murder, you associate systematic murder with
a political philosophy you happen to dislike. That leaves you free to
play the numbers game, whereby certain types of systematic murder are less
evil than others, and therefore defensible in certain (in practice, most)
cases.
> People tend to be a lot more stubborn about giving up their property
> than giving up membership in subversive organizations, hence the scale
> of terror is necessarily vastly greater.
what you should do is actually investigate cases of systematic murder in
countries you consider socialist and other countries and closely analyze
the motivations behind the murder. Were they really caused by adherence
to a program calling for collective (and *democratic!*) control over the
means of production, or by raison d'etat? Instead, you automatically
assume that those countries which killed the most people were socialist.
You even go so far as to claim Hitler was murdering people collective
ownership of production - where is your proof? Hitler's own motivation,
as outlined in _Mein Kampf_, is clearly different.
Finally, you confuse the issue by, at certain times, claiming that
socialists committed the most systematic murder, and at other times,
claiming that they are responsible for *more* deaths than non-socialists.
My original point had been that in terms of pure numbers, countries which
make no claims of being socialist (or Marxist) are clearly ahead.
"Capitalists" (in the First World) don't usually systematically shoot
people. They do systematically hoard food and raise prices during famines
(yes, British capitalists and not the potato virus caused - you do know
the difference between material causes and efficient causes, don't you? -
the famine in Ireland); they systematically enslave people to grease the
wheels of property without caring whether the slaves live or die (30+
million died during the slave trade), and they systematically destroy the
habitat of peoples who do not subscribe to the capitalist/Donaldist
theories of property without giving a rat's ass as to what happens to
those people. At *best*, this negligent *genocide*, but you don't seem to
mind.
Boris Stremlin
bc7...@binghamton.edu
Mike Wooding
G*rd*n wrote:
> You mean income equality? (_Equity_ means fairness, which
> in many people's opinion is _not_ equality.) In social
> democrat arrangements, distribution of income to the poor
> doesn't approach equality with other distributions. The
> role of Welfare recipient is a sort of job involving low
> activity, low morale, and low income. It can still provide
> useful consumption, however -- all but the very most
> depressed Welfarados will buy food and clothing and pay
> rent if they have the money. It's hard to imagine a
> hot-shot doctor or lawyer choosing this role.
This "concept" of useful consumption seems to require some
explanation. And yes it is hard to imagine anyone choosing
the role of "Welfarados." Yet it seems many do choose this
role. Perhaps choosing to be a doctor/lawyer is harder but
more rewarding ... a trade-off some are not willing to make?
--
mi...@wse.com (Mike Wooding)
Alexander J Russell
In article <5saifh$p...@panix2.panix.com>, g...@panix.com says...
>
>G*rd*n wrote:
[snip]
>Also, as I've pointed out before, consumption is useful to
>a capitalist economy _systemically_, because it helps use
>up production and thus keep capital scarce.
>--
> }"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
>NOTE: All junkmail received by this id is automatically
>forwarded to the administrators of the originating and
>intermediate systems, as determined from the headers.
Consuption also gives a reason to keep producing, to keep the profits flowing,
and provide employment so there are consumers...
I think capitalism is the best economic system for the time being, but it isn't
perfect. Right now alot of product is produced simply to keep the economic
wheels turning - not because there is any real need. Still, this is better than
systems where soap is scarce.
kayak3
This is a common stereotype that bears very little resemblence to
reality. Most welfare recipients do not want to be on welfare and are
actively looking for jobs while on it. A little over 70% are off welfare
within 2 years. They usually wind up back on welfare because the
available jobs don't pay enough to cover daycare, rent and food. They
also lose their medicaid eligibility. A very small minority want to be
on welfare and those that do are too down and out to perceive any other
option.
K3
kayak3
Mike Wooding wrote:
> other
> > option.
>
> Well, actually the stereotype bears a strong resemblance to every
> case with which I have personal knowledge.
Filtered through your own bias.
Most welfare recipients
> CLAIM to not want to be on welfare and CLAIM to be looking for
> work, but it's rare to meet those who will take a job.
So you've done a study on this? The studies I've read about indicate
that most welfare mothers not only look for work but accept jobs. They
don't pay enough and don't offer medical benifits.
And around
> here there's help-wanted signs everywhere. There is no shortage
> of work or welfare recipients.
There is a shortage of jobs that will pay enough to cover rent,
childcare, food and transpertation costs.
f course, having a baby (or more)
> without having the means to support one's self is indeed one way
> in which many choose to be on welfare.
Once again, where is the research to back this up. A study done in
Massachusetts indicates that 3/4's of AFDC recipients had left
financially sound relationships to escape domestic violence. The choice
is to leave before he kills her. AFDC is the only way out.
Another is dropping out of
> school or getting involved in drugs and/or criminal activity.
>
> The cost of living is really high around here, but I know many
> young and single people who earn relatively low wages (entry level
> positions) who get by well enuf. So it certainly is possible.
And they don't have to pay childcare costs which can eat up 1/3 to 1/2
of a single mothers paycheck.
K3
James A. Donald
> > under the generals with North Korea under the great leader, Cambodia
> > under Sihanouk with Cambodia under Pol Pot, Chile under Pinochet with
> > Cuba under Castro, Taiwan under the nationalist dictatorship, with
> > China under the communist dictatorship, Ho Chi Minh's merciless terror
> > against the peasants with the various South Vietnamese regimes.
> >
> > The kill ratio is typically about five hundred to one.
mhu...@world.std.com (Mike Huben) wrote:
> None of your carefully selected examples are the socialist ownership
> of states that I was talking about.
Your claim was that existent socialist states were murderous because
they were dictatorships.
My examples demonstrate that dictatorship is nothing to do with it.
Non Socialist dictatorships are markedly and obviously far less
murderous than socialist dictatorships. They were murderous because
socialism makes mass murder necessary.
> You are comparing private ownership
> of states (such as Pol Pot and Castro) to business control of states
> (in Taiwan, South Korea, etc.) You carefully omit (by your selections)
> comparisons between killings in Chile under Allende and Pinochet which
> would refute your claim. And your "kill ratio" is absurd:
Allende failed to achieve mass murder because he was stopped by
violent means.
He was organizing an army of goons, a large proportion of them
foreigners. Allende's goons had thirty thousand guns, more guns than
the official police, more guns than there were official police. What
were they doing with the guns -- using them as props in educational
lectures on virtues of socialism?
> > It is not democracy that makes the difference, it is capitalism that
> > makes the difference, and capitalism which makes democracy possible.
> Capitalism has driven almost all of the slavery and conquest through
> out history.
Bunkum: Governments did it, and they were almost always governments,
such as the Spanish Monarchy, that were strikingly and forcibly
opposed to free markets. Before communist governments threatened the
peace and peoples lives, mercantilist governments such as that of
Napoleon threatened the peace and peoples lives.
> It is only democracy which has enabled capitalism and
> government to be reigned in. Capitalism is not a cause of democracy
> any more than matter is: it is merely a coincidence because it is
> always present.
Funny coincidence that.
There are no democratic countries except for India and Sri Lanka that
are not at least somewhat capitalist, and India and Ceylon have fair
histories of democratic mass murder, for example the massacre of the
Sikhs, the campaign of terror in Kashmir. Interestingly, since India
has become more capitalist and less socialist, mass murder seems to
have stopped, or at least gone from wholesale to retail. (Still going
in Sri Lanka though, despite substantial moves towards capitalism.
The rate of terror may have fallen, but it is difficult to tell.)
On the other hand, there are, or recently were, a vast number of
socialist dictatorships, or wannabe socialist dictatorships where the
government forcefully discourages private property rights in the means
of production, but with insufficient violence to successfully suppress
such rights.
> > When democracies go too far in destroying capitalism, they collapse
> > like a man sawing off the tree limb on which he sits.
> There has never been a democracy which has "gone too far in destroying
> capitalism",
Spain before the Civil war. When the fascists took power they
substantially upped the murder rate, but the newspaper censorship,
political prisoners, and beatings by the authorities did not change
much from what the democratically elected government had found
necessary to impose. Every crime of the fascists in Spain had massive
precedents under the democracy, though in many cases less massive than
that of the fascists.
Similar though less dramatic tales in Guatemala and Chile, where
wannabe democratic socialists found they had to dump political
liberties in order to crush private property rights in the means of
production.
> Here we see James' doublespeak in action: now he's talking about
> "absence of democide" where before he was talking about "kill
> ratios". All his authoritarian capitalist dictatorships have
> significantly more internal democide than democracies.
All non capitalist democracies (India and Ceylon) have significantly
more internal democide than typical capitalist authoritarian
dictatorships, for example South Korea under Park, and South Korea
under Park was one hell of a lot less capitalist than Singapore under
Lee, showing that capitalism makes far more difference, than does
democracy.
Mike Wooding
kayak3 wrote:
> Mike Wooding wrote:
> > This "concept" of useful consumption seems to require some
> > explanation. And yes it is hard to imagine anyone choosing
> > the role of "Welfarados." Yet it seems many do choose this
> > role. Perhaps choosing to be a doctor/lawyer is harder but
> > more rewarding ... a trade-off some are not willing to make?
> This is a common stereotype that bears very little resemblence to
> reality. Most welfare recipients do not want to be on welfare and are
> actively looking for jobs while on it. A little over 70% are off welfare
> within 2 years. They usually wind up back on welfare because the
> available jobs don't pay enough to cover daycare, rent and food. They
> also lose their medicaid eligibility. A very small minority want to be
> on welfare and those that do are too down and out to perceive any other
> option.
Well, actually the stereotype bears a strong resemblance to every
case with which I have personal knowledge. Most welfare recipients
CLAIM to not want to be on welfare and CLAIM to be looking for
work, but it's rare to meet those who will take a job. And around
here there's help-wanted signs everywhere. There is no shortage
of work or welfare recipients. Of course, having a baby (or more)
without having the means to support one's self is indeed one way
in which many choose to be on welfare. Another is dropping out of
school or getting involved in drugs and/or criminal activity.
The cost of living is really high around here, but I know many
young and single people who earn relatively low wages (entry level
positions) who get by well enuf. So it certainly is possible.
--
mi...@wse.com (Mike Wooding)
G*rd*n
tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr):
| ...
| What makes "ownership of states" the relevant variable, anyways? The actual
| economic difference between socialism & capitalism is that under socialism all
| capital goods are owned by the State, while under capitalism ownership of
| capital goods is divided amongst many private parties.
| ...
The definition of socialism is "the ownership or control of
the means of production by the people, or by the working
class." There is no mention of the State.
The idea of socialism is to end the alienation of the workers
from their production, not to implement some kind of state,
which might well impede that purpose.
Tim Starr
In article <EEICn...@world.std.com>, Mike Huben <mhu...@world.std.com> wrote:
>James Donald once again bends reality to suit his ideology.
>
>In article <5rbmce$dit$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,
>>> Here is a classic James Donald conflation of all governments together
>>> to misdirect attention from the true cause of all those millions of
>>> deaths.
>>>
>>> The true cause is private ownership, in this case of states, as opposed
>>> to socialist ownership of states.
>>>
>>> Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Amin (the list is huge) were all
>>> either private owners of states or heads of parties that owned states.
>>> Socialist ownership of states, usually called democracy or
>>> representative democracy does NOT result in significant government
>>> democide:
>>
>>under the generals with North Korea under the great leader, Cambodia
>>under Sihanouk with Cambodia under Pol Pot, Chile under Pinochet with
>>Cuba under Castro, Taiwan under the nationalist dictatorship, with
>>China under the communist dictatorship, Ho Chi Minh's merciless terror
>>against the peasants with the various South Vietnamese regimes.
>>
>>The kill ratio is typically about five hundred to one.
>
>of states that I was talking about.
What would be an example of your "socialist ownership of states"?
What makes "ownership of states" the relevant variable, anyways? The actual
economic difference between socialism & capitalism is that under socialism all
capital goods are owned by the State, while under capitalism ownership of
capital goods is divided amongst many private parties.
Apparently, you're claiming that none of the usual results of socialism will
occur as long as all capital goods are owned by the right kind of State. Very
well: what kind? What are some examples of countries in which all capital
goods were owned by the kind of State you think correct?
>You are comparing private ownership of
>of states (such as Pol Pot and Castro) to business control of states
>(in Taiwan, South Korea, etc.)
The State was very much in control of business in both Taiwan & South Korea.
If businesses didn't do as the KMT or Park regime wanted, they were SOL.
What was being compared were countries with monopoly ownership of capital
goods & countries with pluralistic ownership of capital goods.
>You carefully omit (by your selections) comparisons between killings in
>Chile under Allende and Pinochet which would refute your claim. And your
>"kill ratio" is absurd: it would have Cuba killing 15 million to Pinochet's
>30,000 "disappeared".
Where'd you get the claim that Pinochet's regime killed 30K? That figure's
higher by an order of magnitude than any I've ever seen.
>And if we compare socialist control of states...
There's that undefined term without any concrete examples again.
>...to business control of states...
Ah, I get it: you're comparing ideal socialism to "actually-existing"
capitalism! Cool! That means we get to compare ideal capitalism to
"actually-existing" socialism! Or shall we forgoe such nonsense & stick to
comparing the ideal to the ideal, or the actually-existing to the actually-
existing?
>we find that business controlled states have much higher rates of democide,
>especially externally. Such as the Indonesian genocides in Timor, and
>assorted genocides of the US against the Native Americans.
What makes you think Indonesia is a "business-controlled state"?
I suspect you're using a rigged calculation of the Indonesian foreign democide
rate. My understanding is that Indonesia has killed a large fraction of the
people of East Timor, but that this is largely because the population of East
Timor wasn't very big to begin with. Does anyone happen to know the actual
numbers here? My understanding is also that Indonesia's foreign democide is a
small fraction of the Indonesian population.
Countries with relatively free markets, civil liberties, & democratic
governments are most likely to commit foreign democide if they commit any at
all. Most likely aerial bombing of civilians during wartime, to be precise.
However, Indonesia barely qualifies as a country with very free markets,
civil liberties, & a democratic government. If it does qualify, then it does
only as one of the worst examples in the category. The relevant comparison
comparison would then be to one of the worst examples of a totalitarian
socialist regime such as the USSR or Khmer Rouge Cambodia, whose democide rates
are worse than the Indonesian one by at least an order of magnitude. The Khmer
Rouge murdered about 25% of the Cambodian population. In order for Indonesia
to match that scale, it would have to murder about 40 million of its own
people. Totalitarian countries are not only far more likely to mass-murder,
but they're more likely to do it to their own people.
The Indian Wars were bad, but the colonial wars of every other European power,
all of which were more statist than the USA, were far worse. What the Spanish
did to the Indians was much worse than what the USA did. At least the USA
didn't forcibly convert them to Christianity then work them to death building
monuments to the Christian God. Probably the worst thing the USA did to the
Indians was the forced march of the Cherokees from their land in Georgia, which
was stolen from them, to Oklahoma land that was considered unfit for whites to
live on. They were allowed to practice whatever religion they liked & weren't
enslaved. As late as the turn of the century, more-statist Mexico was still
enslaving Indians en masse & working them to death.
[snip]
>>It is not democracy that makes the difference, it is capitalism that
>>makes the difference, and capitalism which makes democracy possible.
>
>Capitalism has driven almost all of the slavery and conquest through
>out history.
Yes, Vladimir Illyitch, whatever you say. Just tell us what must be done.
"If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the
secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the govern-
ment--and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws."
--Edward Abbey (1927-1989), _Abbey's Road,_ p.39_(Plume, 1979)
Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Think Universally, Act Selfishly
Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of The International
Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL), 836-B Southampton Road, #299, Benicia,
CA 94510; Phone: (707) 746-8796 * Fax: (707) 746-8797; is...@isil.org,
http://www.isil.org/
Liberty is the Best Policy - tims...@netcom.com
Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin
G*rd*n wrote in talk.politics.theory:
>tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr):
>| ...
>| What makes "ownership of states" the relevant variable, anyways? The actual
>| economic difference between socialism & capitalism is that under socialism all
>| capital goods are owned by the State, while under capitalism ownership of
>| capital goods is divided amongst many private parties.
>| ...
>
>The definition of socialism is "the ownership or control of
>the means of production by the people, or by the working
>class." There is no mention of the State.
>
>The idea of socialism is to end the alienation of the workers
>from their production, not to implement some kind of state,
>which might well impede that purpose.
The means chosen to "end the alienation of the workers from their
production" is almost invariably the state, which promptly claims to
completely detach income from labor -- a complete alienation of
workers from their production.
The first underlying assumption of socialism is that I do not
personally and directly receive 100% of the benefit of my labor, I am
alienated from it. But, to put it bluntly, I'm a computer programmer
and I don't need that many business accounting programs. If I
personally and directly received 100% of the benefit of the labor I
do, then I would not do any labor at all. I am much better off
selling my labor to someone else at a mutually agreeable price -- an
option the socialists would deny me.
The second underlying assumption of socialism is that we can have each
person receive the full benefit of their labor and simultaneously
provide each person with the same resources regardless of the value
(or lack thereof) of their labor. That is, if I grow 100 ears of corn
and you grow 50 ears of corn, it is possible for the two of us to
divide our production so that I get the full value of my labor -- 100
ears -- and you get the same amount. Where the extra 50 ears of corn
are to come from, is not explained.
>--
> }"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
>NOTE: All junkmail received by this id is automatically
>forwarded to the administrators of the originating and
>intermediate systems, as determined from the headers.
--------------------------------------------------------------
James R. Olson, jr.
Mike Wooding <mi...@wse.com> wrote:
->kayak3 wrote:
->> Mike Wooding wrote:
->> > This "concept" of useful consumption seems to require some
->> > explanation. And yes it is hard to imagine anyone choosing
->> > the role of "Welfarados." Yet it seems many do choose this
->> > role. Perhaps choosing to be a doctor/lawyer is harder but
->> > more rewarding ... a trade-off some are not willing to make?
->
->> This is a common stereotype that bears very little resemblence to
->> reality. Most welfare recipients do not want to be on welfare and are
->> actively looking for jobs while on it. A little over 70% are off welfare
->> within 2 years. They usually wind up back on welfare because the
->> available jobs don't pay enough to cover daycare, rent and food. They
->> also lose their medicaid eligibility. A very small minority want to be
->> on welfare and those that do are too down and out to perceive any other
->> option.
->
-> Well, actually the stereotype bears a strong resemblance to every
-> case with which I have personal knowledge. Most welfare recipients
-> CLAIM to not want to be on welfare and CLAIM to be looking for
-> work, but it's rare to meet those who will take a job. And around
-> here there's help-wanted signs everywhere. There is no shortage
-> of work or welfare recipients. Of course, having a baby (or more)
-> without having the means to support one's self is indeed one way
-> in which many choose to be on welfare. Another is dropping out of
-> school or getting involved in drugs and/or criminal activity.
Everyone I know who who collected welfare was either unemployably
crazy, or got off it once their youngest kid got into school. It's
not exactly a luxurious lifestyle, in fact, it's pretty hardscrabble.
I certainly wouldn't want to try to feed and clothe two kids on $400
or so a month. But then when you get a job, there go the health
benefits, and you've got to find someone to watch the kids, too.
The system is set up completely backwards for getting people into
jobs. Every dime they make comes out of the welfare check, so until
the job pays more (including benefits) than welfare, the best result
of working is the loss of time, and often there's actually a net loss
of income due to the loss of benefits. So simple rationality says
either work under the table or don't work at all.
->
-> The cost of living is really high around here, but I know many
-> young and single people who earn relatively low wages (entry level
-> positions) who get by well enuf. So it certainly is possible.
There aren't very many young and single (childless) people on welfare.
If they are collecting, it's usually because of some sort of
disability.
Tim Starr
In article <33ebb1ef...@news.blarg.net>,
Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin <wa...@blarg.net> wrote:
>G*rd*n wrote in talk.politics.theory:
>
>>tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr):
>>| ...
>>| economic difference between socialism & capitalism is that under socialism all
>>| capital goods are owned by the State, while under capitalism ownership of
>>| capital goods is divided amongst many private parties.
>>
>>The definition of socialism is "the ownership or control of
>>the means of production by the people, or by the working
>>class." There is no mention of the State.
>>
>>The idea of socialism is to end the alienation of the workers
>>from their production, not to implement some kind of state,
>>which might well impede that purpose.
>
>The means chosen to "end the alienation of the workers from their
>production" is almost invariably the state, which promptly claims to
>completely detach income from labor -- a complete alienation of
>workers from their production.
Actually, it's not terribly relevant whether capital goods are collectively
owned through the State or through some other form of organization - although
I'd love to see what sort of organization Fitch thinks can exercise collective
ownership of capital goods without a monopoly of legitimate violence.
In most societies where capital goods have been owned collectively rather than
severally, they've been owned through the State - just as in most societies
where they've been owned severally that ownership has been under the jurisdic-
tion of the State. The relevant variable is whether capital goods are owned
collectively or severally, not whether there's a State or whether it's a
democratic one or a one-party totalitarian dictatorship.
We can compare the few stateless societies that have had collective ownership
of capital goods to the few stateless societies that have had several ownership
of capital goods, or we can compare the many societies in which the State has
held collective ownership of them to the many societies in which the State has
had jurisdiction over the several owners of capital goods. It's up to Fitch,
either would be relevant comparisons.
If what Fitch wants to do is preach stateless collectivism, then I'd like to
know how much economic development has ever occurred in stateless collectivist
societies, & how he'd respond to Hayek's argument that the central planning of
socialism would inevitably require dictatorship.
G*rd*n
tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr):
| >| ...
| >| What makes "ownership of states" the relevant variable, anyways? The actual
| >| economic difference between socialism & capitalism is that under socialism all
| >| capital goods are owned by the State, while under capitalism ownership of
| >| capital goods is divided amongst many private parties.
G*rd*n wrote in talk.politics.theory:
| >The definition of socialism is "the ownership or control of
| >the means of production by the people, or by the working
| >class." There is no mention of the State.
| >
| >The idea of socialism is to end the alienation of the workers
| >from their production, not to implement some kind of state,
| >which might well impede that purpose.
| The means chosen to "end the alienation of the workers from their
| production" is almost invariably the state, which promptly claims to
| completely detach income from labor -- a complete alienation of
| workers from their production.
Correct. Unfortunately, the State is war and covers the
earth. Attempting to create a socialist polity of any
noticeable size under these conditions generally means that
the creators must be prepared to go to war to install and
defend it. That being the case, they must alienate the
workers' production and divert it into military spending --
in other words, become like their enemies, existing liberal
bourgeois capitalist, feudal, and fascist states and
parties.
| The first underlying assumption of socialism is that I do not
| personally and directly receive 100% of the benefit of my labor, I am
| alienated from it. But, to put it bluntly, I'm a computer programmer
| and I don't need that many business accounting programs. If I
| personally and directly received 100% of the benefit of the labor I
| do, then I would not do any labor at all. I am much better off
| selling my labor to someone else at a mutually agreeable price -- an
| option the socialists would deny me.
Not really. Nothing in the foregoing paragraph contradicts
ownership or control of your means of production, as far as
I can see. Perhaps today someone else buys you your computer,
but most such tools are well within the reach of the
average computer programmer.
| The second underlying assumption of socialism is that we can have each
| person receive the full benefit of their labor and simultaneously
| provide each person with the same resources regardless of the value
| (or lack thereof) of their labor. That is, if I grow 100 ears of corn
| and you grow 50 ears of corn, it is possible for the two of us to
| divide our production so that I get the full value of my labor -- 100
| ears -- and you get the same amount. Where the extra 50 ears of corn
| are to come from, is not explained.
I don't see this in the definition of socialism, or in its
implications. You seem to be talking about communism.
G*rd*n
tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr):
| ...
|We can compare the few stateless societies that have had collective ownership
|of capital goods to the few stateless societies that have had several ownership
|of capital goods, or we can compare the many societies in which the State has
|held collective ownership of them to the many societies in which the State has
|had jurisdiction over the several owners of capital goods. It's up to Fitch,
|either would be relevant comparisons.
If you mean by "capital goods" industrial capital, we have
no examples of stateless societies practicing either
collective or several ownership of capital goods, because we
have no stateless societies, period. Prior to the invention
and imposition of slavery, there were many arrangements for
the ownership, control, and use of resources, including
collective ones.
| If what Fitch wants to do is preach stateless collectivism, then I'd like to
| know how much economic development has ever occurred in stateless collectivist
| societies, & how he'd respond to Hayek's argument that the central planning of
| socialism would inevitably require dictatorship.
Economic development is an outgrowth of the invention of
slavery. Slavery produces surpluses beyond those needed by
the people who produce them, making economic development --
military conquest, slave labor, forced pregnancy to produce
more slaves and soldiers -- not only possible but
inevitable. A primitive stateless-collectivist (tribal)
society, by contrast, would produce only enough for its
needs. But the invention of slavery obviates the
possibility of tribal life. "You can't go home again,"
because home has long since been burned to the ground and
paved over. Today, stateless-collectivist communities
exist only on the margins and in the interstices of the
State. They may produce developments of one kind or
another, but they are even less likely to produce heavy-
duty material economic development than were their
tribal predecessors.
Hayek is more or less correct if one assumes that capital
will always be scarce. Under such circumstances, the
socialist system will resemble the capitalist system, that
is, there will be a dictatorship or oligarchy, rule by an
elite. (It's possible to imagine a sort of democratic-
egalitarian-liberal socialism, but it all seems rather
delicate and unlikely to survive.) What Hayek fails to take
into account (in what I have read, anyway) is the dynamic
nature of capitalism.
Since the powers of production grow geometrically under
capitalism, it seems likely that they will eventually
overwhelm capital scarcity, in which case bourgeois
domination will end and we will find ourselves in what we
might call post-capitalism. This transition is likely to
be rough, because the ubiquity of liberal bourgeois
capitalist propaganda has made it virtually impossible for
the people to understand their present situation and
discuss future alternatives. Like Hayek, they are led to
assume everything will always go on the same way forever.
On the other hand, it's possible that the present system
will destroy itself in a major war or catastrophic
ecological breakdown, in which case, if anyone survives,
they'll probably find themselves in some pre-capitalist
situation. Tribalism, perhaps.
James A. Donald
tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
> I suspect you're using a rigged calculation of the Indonesian foreign democide
> rate. My understanding is that Indonesia has killed a large fraction of the
> people of East Timor, but that this is largely because the population of East
> Timor wasn't very big to begin with. Does anyone happen to know the actual
> numbers here?
Well nobody "knows" the actual numbers, but every reasonably
respectable source I encounter, for example Microsoft Encarta, says
"around" one hundred thousand
By way of comparison around five hundred thousand people are estimated
by to have died at sea in the course of fleeing Vietnam after the fall
of Saigon. Rummel guesses that about the same number died in
re-education camps and extrajudicial executions and the like after the
fall of Saigon. This is consistent with the number of refugees that
Desbarats reports as being personally intimidated by extrajudicial
executions, (http://www.jim.com/jamesd/Repression.htm) and also
assumes the usual high death rate in totalitarian slave labor camps.
It is reasonable to expect that the number who died fleeing should be
of the same order of magnitude as what they were fleeing from, so we
have two independent lines of evidence both indicating similar murder
and wrongful death rates.
Tim Starr
In article <5slcou$35d$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,
>>I suspect you're using a rigged calculation of the Indonesian foreign democide
>>rate. My understanding is that Indonesia has killed a large fraction of the
>>people of East Timor, but that this is largely because the population of East
>>Timor wasn't very big to begin with. Does anyone happen to know the actual
>>numbers here?
>
>respectable source I encounter, for example Microsoft Encarta, says
>"around" one hundred thousand
100K killed by Indonesia? Out of what population?
Interestingly enough, the latest issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine has an
article about the Indonesian annexation of East Timor. One interesting little
tidbit from it is that when the Portugese left, the new FRETILIN commies
killed about 3,000 of their political opponents. That's the same number of
people that Pinochet killed, according to Amnesty International. Funny how
all the lefties can say about East Timor is how awful Indonesia is for
annexing half an island with a murderous new commie government, but have
nothing to say about the commies victims. Yet their screeching about Pinochet,
who didn't kill any more than FRETILIN did, never ends. FRETILIN did it a
whole lot faster than Pinochet, too. After 20 years, Indonesia's probably
killed a whole lot more, but they've had a lot more time to do it in.
Let's see, that's 100K in 20 years, which comes down to about 5K/year. Yep,
that's lots slower than FRETILIN, which racked up 3K in just a few weeks. They
could easily have beaten Indonesia in one year if they'd just kept up that
democide rate.
"If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police,
the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the
government--and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws."
--Edward Abbey (1927-1989), _Abbey's Road,_ p.39_(Plume, 1979)
Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Think Universally, Act Selfishly
Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of The International
Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL), http://www.isil.org/
Personal home page: http://www.creative.net/~star/timstarr.htm
Staffan Vilcans
mcq...@iix.netcom.com (McQ) wrote:
> The question is, at what point to the "richer" groups opt for the
>ease of living enjoyed by the non-working or non-producing "poorer"
>income groups?
Usually there is the ones at the bottom who stands for the production while
the ones at the top stands for the consumption.
---
The Actual Anarchist HomePage at:
http://www.algonet.se/~rsm/actual
T.Asquith
On Wed, 06 Aug 1997 06:15:03 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A. donald)
wrote:
>On Mon, 4 Aug 1997 01:46:22 -0400, Boris Stremlin
><bc7...@binghamton.edu> wrote:
>
>>Exhibit 1
>>
>>On Sun, 20 Jul 1997, James A. Donald wrote:
>>
>>> You intend to kill me and everyone like me, just as Lenin plainly
>>> intended to kill Kerensky and everyone like him, and yet I do not
>>> shoot you, nor am I entitled to, and similarly Kerensky was not
>>> entitled to kill Lenin, and refrained from doing so.
>>>
>>> Now if you actually got started making socialism happen, then I would
>>> be entitled to shoot you, and I would certainly attempt to do so
>
>>This isn't advocating murder? How so?
>
>It is advocating self defence, for socialism necessarily involves
>large scale theft and murder.
And so Mr. Donald, you seem to imply that your alternative,
anarcho-capitalism doesn't.
Actually, ACs advocate theft and fraud so that a few hang onto their
possessions. Of course, this means that eventually force (and murder)
will be needed when the many see through the lies of the few (after
government and the other protections that society has to provide have
been stripped of their power and resources).
--
----
Tom Asquith
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
University of Alberta
tasquith-AT-gpu-DOT-srv-DOT-ualberta-DOT-ca
*************************************************************
"And that's the way it is." --Walter Kronkite
*************************************************************
G*rd*n
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > The definition of socialism is "the ownership or control of
| > the means of production by the people, or by the working
| > class." There is no mention of the State.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. donald):
| Yet if everyone owns everything, instead of some people owning one
| thing and other people owning another thing, then on every matter one
| decision has to be made for everyone, instead of people pursuing
| competing and conflicitng ends. ...
That's why, for instance, public libraries can't work,
because everyone in town has to decide on which books to
get, and when you want to take one out, you have to consult
with the entire population as to which one it should be.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
James A. Donald
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> > > The definition of socialism is "the ownership or control of
> > > the means of production by the people, or by the working
> > > class." There is no mention of the State.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. donald):
> > Yet if everyone owns everything, instead of some people owning one
> > thing and other people owning another thing, then on every matter one
> > decision has to be made for everyone, instead of people pursuing
> > competing and conflicitng ends. ...
This sounds remarkably like a state, and not merely a state, but a
totalitarian state.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> That's why, for instance, public libraries can't work,
If there was nothing *except* public libraries, then no one could
publish, and no one could read, something unapproved. Not only would
various subversive books not be published, neither would "Batman" or
"Gunsmith Cats"
The power of state institutions seems mild and harmless, because it is
limited by competition with capitalist institutions.
And even if a world of no literature other than that supplied and
approved by public libraries was as innocuous as todays public
libraries, it would still involve a state.
James A. Donald
tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>In article <5slcou$35d$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,
>James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>>tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>>>I suspect you're using a rigged calculation of the Indonesian foreign democide
>>>rate. My understanding is that Indonesia has killed a large fraction of the
>>>people of East Timor, but that this is largely because the population of East
>>>Timor wasn't very big to begin with. Does anyone happen to know the actual
>>>numbers here?
>>
>>Well nobody "knows" the actual numbers, but every reasonably
>>respectable source I encounter, for example Microsoft Encarta, says
>>"around" one hundred thousand
>
>100K killed by Indonesia? Out of what population?
East Timor five hundred thousand total population, to the best of my
recollection. Indonesia total population, two hundred million. Total
Indonesian democide, about four hundred thousand in various pogroms.
This is in the same league as some socialists. For example that is
almost as many murdered as by North Vietnam during the pacification of
South Vietnam, though if we add in the other North Vietnamese
democides, such as pacification of the North Vietnamese countryside,
pacification of Cambodia after the conquest of Cambodia, they are
about five times higher than Indonesia, and, of course, the North
Vietnamese democides are vastly higher as a proportion of population,
since the Indochinese population is much lower than the Indonesian
population.
Observer that Indonesia got far more publicity for each of its
democides than North Vietnam got for all of its substantially larger
democides put together.
Although East Timor is comparable to Cambodia in proportion of the
population murdered, (both democides involved wholly artificial
famines) the relevant comparison is with individual provinces of
Cambodia, or with Indonesia as a whole vs Cambodia as a whole. You
will recollect that from time to time Pol Pot ordered entire regions
put to the sword man woman and child, with varying levels of success.
> Interestingly enough, the latest issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine has an
> article about the Indonesian annexation of East Timor. One interesting little
> tidbit from it is that when the Portuguese left, the new FRETILIN commies
> killed about 3,000 of their political opponents.
> That's the same number of
> people that Pinochet killed, according to Amnesty International.
By communist standards, Fretilin is pretty civilized and humane.
Note that three thousand out of a few hundred thousand, is a far
larger proportion of the total population than four hundred thousand
out of two hundred million.
Thus though Fretilin is pretty civilized by communist standards, they
are still more cruel and murderous than Indonesia, and Indonesia is
pretty cruel and murderous by non communist standards.
James A. donald
On 8 Aug 1997 08:24:40 -0400, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> The definition of socialism is "the ownership or control of
> the means of production by the people, or by the working
> class." There is no mention of the State.
Yet if everyone owns everything, instead of some people owning one
thing and other people owning another thing, then on every matter one
decision has to be made for everyone, instead of people pursuing
competing and conflicitng ends.
This sounds remarkably like a state, and not merely a state, but a
totlaitarian state.
In practice such states, states attempting to exercise such vast
power, have found in necessary to employ steady and continuing terror.
Tim Starr
In article <5srd6c$385$2...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>
>>In article <5slcou$35d$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,
>>James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>>>tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) wrote:
>>>>I suspect you're using a rigged calculation of the Indonesian foreign democide
>>>>rate. My understanding is that Indonesia has killed a large fraction of the
>>>>people of East Timor, but that this is largely because the population of East
>>>>Timor wasn't very big to begin with. Does anyone happen to know the actual
>>>>numbers here?
>>>
>>>Well nobody "knows" the actual numbers, but every reasonably
>>>respectable source I encounter, for example Microsoft Encarta, says
>>>"around" one hundred thousand
>>
>>100K killed by Indonesia? Out of what population?
>
>East Timor five hundred thousand total population, to the best of my
>recollection. Indonesia total population, two hundred million. Total
>Indonesian democide, about four hundred thousand in various pogroms.
That figure for Indonesia's total population sounds a bit high to me. I've
heard that it's population was only about 125 million, but I could be wrong.
>This is in the same league as some socialists. For example that is
>almost as many murdered as by North Vietnam during the pacification of
>South Vietnam, though if we add in the other North Vietnamese
>democides, such as pacification of the North Vietnamese countryside,
>pacification of Cambodia after the conquest of Cambodia, they are
>about five times higher than Indonesia, and, of course, the North
>Vietnamese democides are vastly higher as a proportion of population,
>since the Indochinese population is much lower than the Indonesian
>population.
Right. The Indochinese democide's either .3 or .2 percent of the population,
depending upon whether my population estimate or yours is used for the
calculation.
We really oughta produce a table of democides expressed as a percentage of
the total population. That's one thing Rummel didn't do.
>Observe that Indonesia got far more publicity for each of its
>democides than North Vietnam got for all of its substantially larger
>democides put together.
Yep.
>Although East Timor is comparable to Cambodia in proportion of the
>population murdered, (both democides involved wholly artificial
>famines) the relevant comparison is with individual provinces of
>Cambodia, or with Indonesia as a whole vs Cambodia as a whole. You
>will recollect that from time to time Pol Pot ordered entire regions
>put to the sword man woman and child, with varying levels of success.
Right. Pol Pot killed off about 25% of the Cambodian population, while only
about 20% of the East Timorese population has been killed by the Indonesians.
However, I believe the Cambodians did it at a much higher rate. Interesting
how Chomsky argues that a greater percentage of the East Timorese population
was killed than Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. He must be basing that on his
underestimates of the latter.
>>Interestingly enough, the latest issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine has an
>>article about the Indonesian annexation of East Timor. One interesting little
>>tidbit from it is that when the Portuguese left, the new FRETILIN commies
>>killed about 3,000 of their political opponents.
>>That's the same number of
>>people that Pinochet killed, according to Amnesty International.
>
>By communist standards, Fretilin is pretty civilized and humane.
Well, they only had a few weeks to themselves before Indonesia invaded.
>Note that three thousand out of a few hundred thousand, is a far
>larger proportion of the total population than four hundred thousand
>out of two hundred million.
Yes, it is - 2 to 3 times as big. Not bad for just a few weeks.
>Thus though Fretilin is pretty civilized by communist standards, they
>are still more cruel and murderous than Indonesia, and Indonesia is
>pretty cruel and murderous by non communist standards.
Yep. Which just goes to show that the worst authoritarian regimes tend to
be less democidal than the best commies.
G*rd*n
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > > > The definition of socialism is "the ownership or control of
| > > > the means of production by the people, or by the working
| > > > class." There is no mention of the State.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. donald):
| > > Yet if everyone owns everything, instead of some people owning one
| > > thing and other people owning another thing, then on every matter one
| > > decision has to be made for everyone, instead of people pursuing
| > > competing and conflicitng ends. ...
|
| This sounds remarkably like a state, and not merely a state, but a
| totalitarian state.
|
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > That's why, for instance, public libraries can't work,
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| If there was nothing *except* public libraries, then no one could
| publish, and no one could read, something unapproved. Not only would
| various subversive books not be published, neither would "Batman" or
| "Gunsmith Cats"
Yes -- and they'd be lousy at organizing the paper industry,
too, wouldn't they? There wouldn't be any books. Probably,
they'd ruin all of agriculture, and we'd all starve.
The point of my analogy, however, was not to play stretch-
the-analogy, but to show a public institution that operated
in a reasonably efficient, non-totalitarian manner -- over
the area of its competence, of course. And that example
refutes your idea that all public institutions are and must
be totalitarian. Deal with that, not the inability of the
public library system to arrange for raking the sands of
Mars.
| The power of state institutions seems mild and harmless, because it is
| limited by competition with capitalist institutions.
Actually, there isn't much capitalist competition with the
public library. The library is mild and harmless for other
reasons. For instance, the fact that it's public generally
puts it under the influence or control of democratic
processes and charitable institutions.
| And even if a world of no literature other than that supplied and
| approved by public libraries was as innocuous as todays public
| libraries, it would still involve a state.
Could be, although you haven't said why. I was simply
responding to your notion that institutions owned or
controlled by the people had to be totalitarian. Gosh, I've
heard about imperious librarians, but you must have had some
unusual experiences!
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
James A. Donald
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> > > > > > The definition of socialism is "the ownership or control of
> > > > > the means of production by the people, or by the working
> > > > > class." There is no mention of the State.
James A. donald wrote:
> > > > Yet if everyone owns everything, instead of some people
> > > > owning one thing and other people owning another thing, then
> > > > on every matter one decision has to be made for everyone,
> > > > instead of people pursuing competing and conflicting ends.
> > > > [...]
> > > >
> > > > This sounds remarkably like a state, and not merely a state,
> > > > but a totalitarian state.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> > > That's why, for instance, public libraries can't work,
James A. Donald wrote:
> > If there was nothing *except* public libraries, then no one could
> > publish, and no one could read, something unapproved. Not only
> > would various subversive books not be published, neither would
> > "Batman" or "Gunsmith Cats"
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> Yes -- and they'd be lousy at organizing the paper industry,
> too, wouldn't they? There wouldn't be any books. Probably,
> they'd ruin all of agriculture, and we'd all starve.
With great regularity, public ownership of agriculture *has* ruined
agriculture.
But this is an irrelevant digression: The point at issue is that
socialism necessarily requires a state: if everyone owns everything,
instead of some people owning one thing and other people owning
another thing, then on every matter one decision has to be made for
everyone, instead of people pursuing competing and conflicting ends
Even if socialized agriculture and socialized books worked just fine,
it would STILL involve a vastly powerful state.
> The point of my analogy, however, was not to play stretch-
> the-analogy, but to show a public institution that operated
> in a reasonably efficient, non-totalitarian manner
Indeed libraries are harmless and non threatening--as long as they do
not have sole control over what you read, But public libraries
*still* require something remarkably similar to a state to run them
and provide for them.
> And that example
> refutes your idea that all public institutions are and must
> be totalitarian.
On the contrary, it demonstrates that capitalism is necessary for
liberty. Libraries are non totalitarian because of privately owned
books, and privately owned publishers, and privately owned printing
presses.
G*rd*n
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| ...
| socialism necessarily requires a state: if everyone owns everything,
| instead of some people owning one thing and other people owning
| another thing, then on every matter one decision has to be made for
| everyone, instead of people pursuing competing and conflicting ends
I gave a counterexample, but don't let that bother you.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Gav. McNett
James A. Donald wrote:
> But this is an irrelevant digression: The point at issue is that
> socialism necessarily requires a state: if everyone owns everything,
> instead of some people owning one thing and other people owning
> another thing, then on every matter one decision has to be made for
> everyone, instead of people pursuing competing and conflicting ends
Grrr! Nobody will take my stuff away. Liars. I hate taxes. I want to own
everything and not give anyone else any.
> Indeed libraries are harmless and non threatening--as long as they do
> not have sole control over what you read, But public libraries
> *still* require something remarkably similar to a state to run them
> and provide for them.
An omnipotent totalitarian library-state, in miniature. A bibliopoly.
And that would lead to mass political murder, and Chomsky would be free
to eat babies VIRTUALLY AT WILL!!!
> > And that example
> > refutes your idea that all public institutions are and must
> > be totalitarian.
Lies, lies, lies, LIES!!!
> On the contrary, it demonstrates that capitalism is necessary for
> liberty. Libraries are non totalitarian because of privately owned
> books, and privately owned publishers, and privately owned printing
> presses.
And privately-owned armies of mercenary slave-troops, prowling the
tundra for CHOMSKY!!! And... Oh, excuse me. I thought this was
alt.james-donald's.naptime.fantasies
Mike Huben
In article <timstarrE...@netcom.com>,
Tim Starr <tims...@netcom.com> wrote:
>What would be an example of your "socialist ownership of states"?
Good Ol' Tim: can't see the forest for the trees.
Try the USA. Or any of the other multiparty democratic republics where
the government hasn't been captured by a single party, as Mexico was for
more than half a century.
In those nations, the state is owned by the people, not a dictator, king,
party, or other small cabal. And the state is responsive to them.
>What makes "ownership of states" the relevant variable, anyways? The actual
>economic difference between socialism & capitalism is that under socialism all
>capital goods are owned by the State, while under capitalism ownership of
>capital goods is divided amongst many private parties.
Ownership of the states is obviously the more fundamental variable, since
the owners of the states control which property system (socialism or
capitalism for example) will be enforced, which rights of individuals will
be enforced, etc.
>Apparently, you're claiming that none of the usual results of socialism will
>occur as long as all capital goods are owned by the right kind of State. Very
>well: what kind? What are some examples of countries in which all capital
>goods were owned by the kind of State you think correct?
Wrong: I'm claiming that socialist ownership of the state should not be
confused with socialist ownership of the means of production. And just as
there's no need for a mall owner to operate all the stores in his mall,
so there's no need for a socialistically owned state to operate all the
means of production: indeed, we operate very little here in the US.
>>You are comparing private ownership of
>>of states (such as Pol Pot and Castro) to business control of states
>>(in Taiwan, South Korea, etc.)
>
>The State was very much in control of business in both Taiwan & South Korea.
>If businesses didn't do as the KMT or Park regime wanted, they were SOL.
The states in both Taiwan and South Korea are ruled by parties strongly
supported and controlled by business.
>What was being compared were countries with monopoly ownership of capital
>goods & countries with pluralistic ownership of capital goods.
And what I'm pointing out is that there are other variables that are
probably more significant than ownership of capital goods, namely
ownership of the state.
You and James Donald illustrate a common libertarian tactic of attempting
to focus attention solely on the one issue your ideology deals with.
When people think out of the box you try to place them in, it becomes
obvious that your arguments are not worth much. There's more to the
world than your simplistic "capitalism is the source of all good, socialism
the source of all evil."
>>You carefully omit (by your selections) comparisons between killings in
>>Chile under Allende and Pinochet which would refute your claim. And your
>>"kill ratio" is absurd: it would have Cuba killing 15 million to Pinochet's
>>30,000 "disappeared".
>
>Where'd you get the claim that Pinochet's regime killed 30K? That figure's
>higher by an order of magnitude than any I've ever seen.
Then you obviously haven't read much. Figures I've seen on the web range
from the authoritative MINIMUM of 3,197 (National Commission on Truth and
Reconciliation and it's successor, confirmed cases only, cited at
http://www.usis.usemb.se/human/chile.htm) and 40,000, cited remotely from
any orginal sources at Workers World newspaper August 7, 1997.
>>And if we compare socialist control of states...
>>...to business control of states...
>>we find that business controlled states have much higher rates of democide,
>>especially externally. Such as the Indonesian genocides in Timor, and
>>assorted genocides of the US against the Native Americans.
>
>What makes you think Indonesia is a "business-controlled state"?
Do you think the businesses of Indonesia have no input to the dominant
political party? Do you REALLY think that all command and control flows
from its dicatator?
>I suspect you're using a rigged calculation of the Indonesian foreign democide
>rate. My understanding is that Indonesia has killed a large fraction of the
>people of East Timor, but that this is largely because the population of East
>Timor wasn't very big to begin with. Does anyone happen to know the actual
>numbers here? My understanding is also that Indonesia's foreign democide is a
>small fraction of the Indonesian population.
Considering that Indonesia is the third or fourth most populous nation in the
world, that may not be surprising. But you're making a VERY weak apologetic
for genocide. Why, perhaps we then could equally legitimately kill the
same percentage of the richest portion of our population and redistribute
their property.
>Countries with relatively free markets, civil liberties, & democratic
>governments are most likely to commit foreign democide if they commit any at
>all. Most likely aerial bombing of civilians during wartime, to be precise.
>However, Indonesia barely qualifies as a country with very free markets,
>civil liberties, & a democratic government. If it does qualify, then it does
>only as one of the worst examples in the category.
If you paid attention to this string, James Donal was saying that CAPITALISM
was the difference, not civil liberties or democracy. Indonesia is
strongly capitalist.
>The Indian Wars were bad, but the colonial wars of every other European power,
>all of which were more statist than the USA, were far worse. What the Spanish
>did to the Indians was much worse than what the USA did. At least the USA
>didn't forcibly convert them to Christianity then work them to death building
>monuments to the Christian God. Probably the worst thing the USA did to the
>Indians was the forced march of the Cherokees from their land in Georgia, whch
>was stolen from them, to Oklahoma land that was considered unfit for whites to
>live on. They were allowed to practice whatever religion they liked & weren't
>enslaved. As late as the turn of the century, more-statist Mexico was still
>enslaving Indians en masse & working them to death.
The colonial wars of all the European powers occurred during the private
ownership of those states by monarchs or despots, and occurred for the
private enrichment of those same and their capitalist cronies.
>>>It is not democracy that makes the difference, it is capitalism that
>>>makes the difference, and capitalism which makes democracy possible.
>>
>>Capitalism has driven almost all of the slavery and conquest through
>>out history.
>
>Yes, Vladimir Illyitch, whatever you say. Just tell us what must be done.
Why, we have already done it: capitalism is regulated by the socialist
ownership of our nation. What remains is to prevent the undoing of that
system by those jingoists for capitalism. And to help to see that system
expanded to many other nations.
Mike Huben mhu...@world.std.com http://world.std.com/~mhuben/
For rebuttals to libertarian arguments, check out:
Critiques of Libertarianism http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html
Liberalism Resurgent http://www.scruz.net/~kangaroo/tenets.htm
Liberalism demands that people without guns be able to tell people with guns
what to do.
Stephen Holmes, "What Russia Teaches Us Now"
http://epn.org/prospect/33/33holmfs.html
John Bicketts
>On Mon, 4 Aug 1997 01:46:22 -0400, Boris Stremlin
><bc7...@binghamton.edu> wrote:
>
>>Exhibit 1
>>
>>On Sun, 20 Jul 1997, James A. Donald wrote:
>>
>>> You intend to kill me and everyone like me, just as Lenin plainly
>>> intended to kill Kerensky and everyone like him, and yet I do not
>>> shoot you, nor am I entitled to, and similarly Kerensky was not
>>> entitled to kill Lenin, and refrained from doing so.
>>>
>>> Now if you actually got started making socialism happen, then I would
>>> be entitled to shoot you, and I would certainly attempt to do so
>
>>This isn't advocating murder? How so?
>
>It is advocating self defence, for socialism necessarily involves
>large scale theft and murder.
Look, if libertarians think that killing anyone the perceive (perhaps
as result of a paranoia cimplex) as threatening, doesnt that kind of
destroy that "initiation of force" thing they have? Or is it, as I've
thought all along, just a dopey way of saying "only libertarians are
justified when they use force"?
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
>of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
>right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
>
>http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald jam...@echeque.com
--John Bicketts
Mailto:sfei...@mach3ww.com
Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin
James A. Donald wrote in talk.politics.theory:
>There are no democratic countries except for India and Sri Lanka that
>are not at least somewhat capitalist, and India and Ceylon have fair
>histories of democratic mass murder, for example the massacre of the
>Sikhs, the campaign of terror in Kashmir. Interestingly, since India
>has become more capitalist and less socialist, mass murder seems to
>have stopped, or at least gone from wholesale to retail. (Still going
>in Sri Lanka though, despite substantial moves towards capitalism.
>The rate of terror may have fallen, but it is difficult to tell.)
The terror in Sri Lanka is a result of affirmative-action type
policies. And it was the group benefitted by those policies, not the
group harmed by them, that started the civil war because their
tax-subsidized benefits and preferences simply weren't big enough.
(Oddly, the particular individuals who started the civil war were
among the richest and most powerful members of the benefitted group --
and the children of people who had been the richest and most powerful
members of the benefitted group *before* the affirmative-action
policies were instituted.)
James A. Donald
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
> > But this is an irrelevant digression: The point at issue is that
> > socialism necessarily requires a state: if everyone owns everything,
> > instead of some people owning one thing and other people owning
> > another thing, then on every matter one decision has to be made for
> > everyone, instead of people pursuing competing and conflicting ends
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> I gave a counterexample, but don't let that bother you.
As I pointed out: You did not give a counter example. Public
libraries are not a counter example.
Public libraries still require a state, to sustain them and direct
them, and were it not for privately owned books, and privately owned
printing presses, the power of that state and its libraries would be
frighteningly vast.
G*rd*n
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| > > But this is an irrelevant digression: The point at issue is that
| > > socialism necessarily requires a state: if everyone owns everything,
| > > instead of some people owning one thing and other people owning
| > > another thing, then on every matter one decision has to be made for
| > > everyone, instead of people pursuing competing and conflicting ends
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > I gave a counterexample, but don't let that bother you.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| As I pointed out: You did not give a counter example. Public
| libraries are not a counter example.
|
| Public libraries still require a state....
No, sir, they do not. I have even participated in a public
library organized on anarchist principles. That is, the
land and building were loaned, the books were donated, and
anyone was welcome to borrow.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
James A. Donald
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
> > Public libraries still require a state....
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> No, sir, they do not. I have even participated in a public
> library organized on anarchist principles. That is, the
> land and building were loaned, the books were donated, and
> anyone was welcome to borrow.
Anarchist indeed, but not socialist.
This is like arguing that the World Wide Web represents socialism in
action.
The will of the *owners* of that private library counted for
everything, and the will of "the people" counted for nothing, just as
at every web site.
In order to make property subject to the will of "the people", rather
than particular property subject to the will of particular *owners* of
that property, you need a state.
Bryan Cowan
In article <33F22193...@mcnett.SPAMCATCHER.org>, "Gav. McNett"
<ga...@mcnett.SPAMCATCHER.org> wrote:
> James A. Donald wrote:
>
> > But this is an irrelevant digression: The point at issue is that
> > socialism necessarily requires a state: if everyone owns everything,
> > instead of some people owning one thing and other people owning
> > another thing, then on every matter one decision has to be made for
> > everyone, instead of people pursuing competing and conflicting ends
>
> Grrr! Nobody will take my stuff away. Liars. I hate taxes. I want to own
> everything and not give anyone else any.
>
>
> > Indeed libraries are harmless and non threatening--as long as they do
> > not have sole control over what you read, But public libraries
> > *still* require something remarkably similar to a state to run them
> > and provide for them.
>
> An omnipotent totalitarian library-state, in miniature. A bibliopoly.
> And that would lead to mass political murder, and Chomsky would be free
> to eat babies VIRTUALLY AT WILL!!!
>
> > > And that example
> > > refutes your idea that all public institutions are and must
> > > be totalitarian.
>
> Lies, lies, lies, LIES!!!
>
> > On the contrary, it demonstrates that capitalism is necessary for
> > liberty. Libraries are non totalitarian because of privately owned
> > books, and privately owned publishers, and privately owned printing
> > presses.
>
> And privately-owned armies of mercenary slave-troops, prowling the
> tundra for CHOMSKY!!! And... Oh, excuse me. I thought this was
> alt.james-donald's.naptime.fantasies
Or alt.wet.dream.james-donald. :)
Michael LeBlanc
In article <5t23m8$fjd$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>This is like arguing that the World Wide Web represents socialism in
>action.
You *do* realize that the initial WWW was an offshoot of a government-funded
project? <g>
:Michael (good enough for government work, eh?)
--
================+++==============================================
= Michael \\ "Kismet is a feather, =
= dj...@shore.net \\ Karma is the whole chicken." =
=================+++=============================================
James A. Donald
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
>| > No, sir, they do not. I have even participated in a public
>| > library organized on anarchist principles. That is, the
>| > land and building were loaned, the books were donated, and
>| > anyone was welcome to borrow.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
>| Anarchist indeed, but not socialist.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> Now all we need is for the surrounding community to own or
> control their means of production, and we have socialism.
> There is no need for everyone to control everyone else.
That is *all* we need? Sounds very much as if you are saying "all we
need is a state to control the means of production.
> Perhaps you mean to draw attention to the difficulty of
> drawing boundaries and determining areas of interest in
> circumstances where we do not use contemporary methods
> (State-defined propertization) for doing so. Socialists
> and anarchists often gloss over such problems.
The problem is that, without property rights, everything affects
everyone. If I use a pencil, someone else cannot use that pencil, and
he has as much say as I. And if an extra pencil is to be produced, it
needs some extra glue and some extra this and some extra that, which
must be applied to one purpose when it could have been applied to
another purpose.
If a book goes to one library, it cannot go to another, and if
resources are applied to produce more of one book, they cannot be
applied to produce more of another book, or more hamburgers.
Property rights are just a way of saying one guy gets to make all
decisions about one thing, and another guy gets to make all decisions
about another thing, fair or unfair, in the public interest, or to
hell with the public interest.
If such decision are to be made for the public interest, the peak of
the pyramid, the central planning office, representing all the public,
ends up having to decide everything that anyone would care about.
G*rd*n
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > No, sir, they do not. I have even participated in a public
| > library organized on anarchist principles. That is, the
| > land and building were loaned, the books were donated, and
| > anyone was welcome to borrow.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| Anarchist indeed, but not socialist.
Now all we need is for the surrounding community to own or
control their means of production, and we have socialism.
There is no need for everyone to control everyone else.
Perhaps you mean to draw attention to the difficulty of
drawing boundaries and determining areas of interest in
circumstances where we do not use contemporary methods
(State-defined propertization) for doing so. Socialists
and anarchists often gloss over such problems.
| This is like arguing that the World Wide Web represents socialism in
| action.
|
| The will of the *owners* of that private library counted for
| everything, and the will of "the people" counted for nothing, just as
| at every web site.
There weren't any effective owners of the library. If the
local government had cared, they probably could have either
seized it or forced somebody to acknowledge ownership, but
they didn't care.
People who ascribe anarchy to the Net usually are talking
about its organization above the site level, which everyone
acknowledges displays a great variety of ownership models,
mostly simple private ownership. (That anarchy is now being
thrown away due to the desire to suppress junk mail, but
that's another issue -- see the net abuse newsgroups.)
| In order to make property subject to the will of "the people", rather
| than particular property subject to the will of particular *owners* of
| that property, you need a state.
That depends on the "will of the people", doesn't it?
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin
James R. Olson, jr. wrote in talk.politics.theory:
>Mike Wooding <mi...@wse.com> wrote:
>
>->kayak3 wrote:
>->> Mike Wooding wrote:
>->> > This "concept" of useful consumption seems to require some
>->> > explanation. And yes it is hard to imagine anyone choosing
>->> > the role of "Welfarados." Yet it seems many do choose this
>->> > role. Perhaps choosing to be a doctor/lawyer is harder but
>->> > more rewarding ... a trade-off some are not willing to make?
>->
>->> This is a common stereotype that bears very little resemblence to
>->> reality. Most welfare recipients do not want to be on welfare and are
>->> actively looking for jobs while on it. A little over 70% are off welfare
>->> within 2 years. They usually wind up back on welfare because the
>->> available jobs don't pay enough to cover daycare, rent and food. They
>->> also lose their medicaid eligibility. A very small minority want to be
>->> on welfare and those that do are too down and out to perceive any other
>->> option.
>->
>-> Well, actually the stereotype bears a strong resemblance to every
>-> case with which I have personal knowledge. Most welfare recipients
>-> CLAIM to not want to be on welfare and CLAIM to be looking for
>-> work, but it's rare to meet those who will take a job. And around
>-> here there's help-wanted signs everywhere. There is no shortage
>-> of work or welfare recipients. Of course, having a baby (or more)
>-> without having the means to support one's self is indeed one way
>-> in which many choose to be on welfare. Another is dropping out of
>-> school or getting involved in drugs and/or criminal activity.
>
>Everyone I know who who collected welfare was either unemployably
>crazy, or got off it once their youngest kid got into school.
I have known exactly two people who, having been on welfare as adults,
have gotten off welfare. I know many times that number who have been
on welfare their entire adult lives.
One of those two is a real interesting case. Single mother,
mid-twenties, daughter about 8 months old. Decided to go to school
and qualify for a job in the medical profession -- a low-end job, so
not all that much school involved. She went to the welfare office to
get help on child-care expenses -- she already had qualified for a
100% scholarship based on ability, not need, for the course. The
local welfare administrators told her that if she enrolled in school,
her welfare would be *cut*.
She actually spent *six* months battling against the welfare
administration to win a continuation of benefits (and help on child
care) so that she could afford to go to school for a *three* month
course.
A week after she finished the course, she had a paycheck in hand. She
found out what the state was paying per day for child care for her
daughter, and found a better place for half the price. She told the
welfare office to discontinue *all* her benefits.
Last time I talked with her, several months ago, she was still working
in the records department of a local hospital. But she had bailed out
the computer technicians on several occasions (using skills and
knowledge she picked up in her spare time for recreational purposes),
and may by now have been grabbed by them.
The other person I know who got off welfare has a similarly high-end
intellect.
> It's
>not exactly a luxurious lifestyle, in fact, it's pretty hardscrabble.
>I certainly wouldn't want to try to feed and clothe two kids on $400
>or so a month. But then when you get a job, there go the health
>benefits, and you've got to find someone to watch the kids, too.
>
>The system is set up completely backwards for getting people into
>jobs. Every dime they make comes out of the welfare check, so until
>the job pays more (including benefits) than welfare, the best result
>of working is the loss of time, and often there's actually a net loss
>of income due to the loss of benefits. So simple rationality says
>either work under the table or don't work at all.
>
>->
>-> The cost of living is really high around here, but I know many
>-> young and single people who earn relatively low wages (entry level
>-> positions) who get by well enuf. So it certainly is possible.
>
>There aren't very many young and single (childless) people on welfare.
>If they are collecting, it's usually because of some sort of
>disability.
Young, single, childless people are also quite often able to do things
which aren't so easy for couples or parents. Things such as:
* live with parents
* put 4 wage-earners in a cheap 2-bedroom apartment
* do without medical coverage (hard on parents of small children)
* skimp on medical care (hard on parents of small children with ear
infections -- and they *all* get ear infections)
* skip meals (hard on parents of small children)
All these things tend to drive expenses down for most people most of
the time.
C. Petersen
>>
>>->
>>-> The cost of living is really high around here, but I know many
>>-> young and single people who earn relatively low wages (entry level
>>-> positions) who get by well enuf. So it certainly is possible.
>>
>>There aren't very many young and single (childless) people on welfare.
>>If they are collecting, it's usually because of some sort of
>>disability.
>
>Young, single, childless people are also quite often able to do things
>which aren't so easy for couples or parents. Things such as:
>
> * live with parents
> * put 4 wage-earners in a cheap 2-bedroom apartment
> * do without medical coverage (hard on parents of small children)
> * skimp on medical care (hard on parents of small children with ear
Not only are there not very many childless adults on welfare... there
aren't any. 'Welfare' is considered to be the AFDC program. You know, aid
to families with dependent children. You need dependent children. This is
why all the single homeless people don't just get into a state aid
program. There are no programs except for SSI which is for disabled
people. I know some people who are Russian and Cuban immigrants who are
sort of sensitive and really anti communist, and they would say there
shouldn't een be SSI, but most people would not favor bumping the blind,
the paraplegics, the schizophrenics and so forth off to be independent.
Welfare is very mismanaged. If you get welfare, they first make
sure that you have no assets and wealth and possible sources of income.
You would have to get rid of a house, if you had one, and it promotes
singleparenthood because if the husband or wife got a part time low wage
job, then they couldn't qualify, so the husband usually leaves. Anyway, a
huge hurdle to getting of fwelfare is the fact that if and when you get a
job, it is usually one or two paycheck cycles before you get your first
check, so that will take a month, but the welfare check runs out the very
second you get the job so you have to be able to last an entire month with
no money and no savings.
--
Christine Petersen
Russell Turpin
-*-------
G*rd*n wrote:
> As I've pointed out quite recently, there's no absolute
> need for a state. ...
Of course not. Wherever reactionaries, interested in their own
good but blind to the cause, pursue courses of action that would
destroy the socialist utopia, the revolutionary people will have
the political consciousness and selfless motivation to rise up
and put a stop to it. Or at least, that is the way it happens in
the socialist-anarchist "just so" stories. So no state is
needed. Really.
Russell
--
An atheist doesn't have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that
there can't be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that
the evidence on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence
on the werewolf question. -- John McCarthy
G*rd*n
G*rd*n wrote:
| > As I've pointed out quite recently, there's no absolute
| > need for a state. ...
tur...@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin):
| Of course not. Wherever reactionaries, interested in their own
| good but blind to the cause, pursue courses of action that would
| destroy the socialist utopia, the revolutionary people will have
| the political consciousness and selfless motivation to rise up
| and put a stop to it. Or at least, that is the way it happens in
| the socialist-anarchist "just so" stories. So no state is
| needed. Really.
So who people who own and control their means of production
are just going to give them away? Because they know
in their hearts it's better to have an elite make the
important decisions for them and run their lives? Maybe
you're right, but the idea is just as much of a just-so
story as anything else.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Russell Turpin
-*-------
In article <5t87aa$i...@panix2.panix.com>, G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>>> As I've pointed out quite recently, there's no absolute
>>> need for a state. ...
tur...@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin):
>> Of course not. Wherever reactionaries, interested in their own
>> good but blind to the cause, pursue courses of action that would
>> destroy the socialist utopia, the revolutionary people will have
>> the political consciousness and selfless motivation to rise up
>> and put a stop to it. Or at least, that is the way it happens in
>> the socialist-anarchist "just so" stories. So no state is
>> needed. Really.
Fitch:
> So who people who own and control their means of production
> are just going to give them away? ...
Of course not. People will fight to keep what they consider
theirs. This will happen not just before the revolution, but
after it. And who will stop them in the socialist anarchy? And
why? In every scenario depicting selfish, proto-capitalist
activity, we are told that the people in the anarchy will rise up
to battle against it (despite the fact that they suffer no
immediate harm from it). I can only wonder at how this uniform
and revolutionary consiousness is maintained ...
> ... Because they know in their hearts it's better to have an
> elite make the important decisions for them and run their lives?
> Maybe you're right, but the idea is just as much of a just-so
> story as anything else.
Huh? Are we supposed to assume that socialism is inevitable, so
that our just-so stories of its inevitability can compete? I
wasn't playing that game ...
G*rd*n
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > Now all we need is for the surrounding community to own or
| > control their means of production, and we have socialism.
| > There is no need for everyone to control everyone else.
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| That is *all* we need? Sounds very much as if you are saying "all we
| need is a state to control the means of production.
| ...
As I've pointed out quite recently, there's no absolute
need for a state. As it happens, most socialists envision
some kind of state, because most socialists derive their
theories from liberalism, which finds the State acceptable
when it protects certain interests.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Mike Wooding
G*rd*n wrote:
> jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
> | That is *all* we need? Sounds very much as if you are saying "all we
> | need is a state to control the means of production.
> | ...
>
> As I've pointed out quite recently, there's no absolute
> need for a state. As it happens, most socialists envision
> some kind of state, because most socialists derive their
> theories from liberalism, which finds the State acceptable
> when it protects certain interests.
Actually it's often denied that there's no need for a state to
implement socialism, but the evidence is to the contrary. Really
stupid ideas can ONLY be maintained long under the aegis of the
state. No?
--
mi...@wse.com (Mike Wooding)
G*rd*n
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| > | That is *all* we need? Sounds very much as if you are saying "all we
| > | need is a state to control the means of production.
| > | ...
G*rd*n wrote:
| > As I've pointed out quite recently, there's no absolute
| > need for a state. As it happens, most socialists envision
| > some kind of state, because most socialists derive their
| > theories from liberalism, which finds the State acceptable
| > when it protects certain interests.
Mike Wooding <mi...@wse.com>:
| Actually it's often denied that there's no need for a state to
| implement socialism, but the evidence is to the contrary. Really
| stupid ideas can ONLY be maintained long under the aegis of the
| state. No?
No -- as Schiller wrote, "Against stupidity the gods
themselves contend in vain." Look around you.
It's clever ideas that are difficult to realize, in both
senses of the word. So if socialism were a stupid idea, it
would be a big success today.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
George Jetson
man i dig chomsky
but yooz guys argue about infinitesimally insignificant word roots and
fractions
Meet George Jetson...Jane his wife...daughter Judy...his boy
Elroy...Jane stop this crazy thing!
"I'm rorry Reorge"
Russell Turpin
-*--------
In article <5t9cnn$i...@panix2.panix.com>, G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
> Actually, from what I've read, anarcho-socialists seem to
> imagine that the people would more or less ignore proto-
> capitalist activity that didn't involve violence. ...
Remember, though, that socialist anarchists use the term
"violence" to include a wide range of peaceful activities. It is
very easy to describe people establishing capitalist
relationships (employer-employee relationships, capitalization
relationships that convert personal property into a means of
production, etc.), that benefit every person directly involved.
If the residents of the socialist anarchy ignore this, the
socialist nature of their anarchy is eventually lost. If they
create the social structures that seem necessary to prevent it,
then the anarchist nature of their socialism is lost.
Or perhaps you meant that socialist anarchists prefer to ignore
this problem?
> Historically, a great deal of violence has usually been
> necessary to establish capitalist relations. ...
Nonsense. A great deal of violence has usually been necessary to
establish states, regardless of their economic basis. As you
wrote, "The pathology of violence is indeed a problem in any
society, but this is a general problem, not a peculiarity of
capitalism." But capitalist relationships are *typically*
established with no more attendant violence than any other kind
of relationship, even when they arise spontaneously in societies
that do not explicitly support them. (All human relationships
potentially lead to violence, even simple friendship.)
> ... However, it seems to be common sense that beings with a
> healthy sense of self-interest and a modicum of rationality
> would try to exert some control over their circumstances, and
> if they were as incorrigibly social as humans appear to be,
> they'd try to exert this control socially, rather than submit
> forever to regimes of domination and hierarchy. But I could
> be wrong.
You're not facing the problem. Capitalist relationships arise
precisely from self interest. They arise spontaneously because
their benefits are (a) obvious, in the form of material profit,
(b) accrue to everyone directly involved, and (c) directly as a
result of the individual relationship. In contrast, the danger
socialists allege in ANY PARTICULAR INSTANCE is (1) theoretical,
visible only to those steeped in the socialist ideology, (2)
eventual, causing "harm" only when such relationships become the
dominant economic paradigm, and (3) indirect, because no
individual instance is the hair that breaks the camel's back.
Given this, the socialist anarchist cannot just say that the
people will rise up and act in their (alledged) self-interest to
squash such relationships, but instead, must explain what social
structures will maintain the required revolutionary
consciousness, and how such structures do not also constitute a
"regime of domination and hierarchy."
Russell Turpin
-*-------
In article <5t9ohd$b...@panix2.panix.com>, G*rd*n <g...@panix.com> wrote:
> In history, employer-employee relationships have not
> grown out of socialist anarchies but out of violence, ...
No. They have occurred almost everywhere, and generally no more
connected to the violence of the surrounding society than most
other kinds of relationships. There are some cases where they
were the focus of political conflict and violence, just as there
are cases where religious belief, sexual preference, and drug use
were the focus of this. But that does not connect the
employer-employee relationships to violence in any more necessary
fashion than worship, sex, or drug use.
tur...@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin):
>> You're not facing the problem. Capitalist relationships arise
>> precisely from self interest. They arise spontaneously because
>> their benefits are (a) obvious, in the form of material profit,
>> (b) accrue to everyone directly involved, and (c) directly as a
>> result of the individual relationship. ...
Fitch:
> Capitalist relations arise from self-interest in a context
> of oppression. If, by some happy chance, human societies
> emerge from oppression as the standard operating procedure,
> which is what I believe "socialist anarchy" is supposed to
> mean, then there won't be any social basis for capitalist
> relations except (as I noted above) a kind of play-acting. ...
No. Taking the socialist anarchist utopia as a starting point,
it is trivial to describe realistic scenarios (at least as
realistic as the assumed starting point) where an
employer-employee relationship would arise, to the benefit of all
directly involved. It has been done here many times. The usual
response is that the people would rise up to stop this. I see
that you prefer just to say it would not happen, with no
explanation as to why not.
James A. donald
On 17 Aug 1997 17:09:12 GMT, ott...@u.washington.edu (C. Petersen)
wrote:
> Not only are there not very many childless adults on welfare... there
> aren't any. 'Welfare' is considered to be the AFDC program. You know, aid
> to families with dependent children.
By this criterion, we have almost no welfare. In actual reality of
course, we have a great deal of welfare.
One particularly infamous program is Social security supplemental
income. The bureaucrats cruise the streets looking for winos and
junkies. Drug addiction was and is grounds for a substantial handout.
Almost every year Congress outlaws this, and the bureaucrats either
find a new loophole or just plain defy the law, even though we have
legislation piled on top of legislation to put an end to the practice.
Trouble is that the bureaucrats want more welfare dependents for
pretty much the same reason as general motors wants more people to
drive cars, so it is in the interest of the bureaucrats to encourage,
indeed to compel, self destructive behavior.
Indeed because AFDC has been somewhat controversial, the welfare
bureaucrats have been systematically shifting the load to other
welfare programs. The reason AFDC has been so controversial is that a
significant portion of the recipients seem to be producing children as
a career choice (it is actually profitable if you refrain from
investing any significant effort into raising or caring for the
little bastards.)
A lot of people who are perfectly eligible for AFDC has instead been
put onto other programs by some legalistic mumbo jumbo, in order to
make the figures look better.
> This is
> why all the single homeless people don't just get into a state aid
> program.
But nearly all the homeless people *are* on a state aid program.
Homelessness is the result of artificial housing shortages, not
poverty. You do not see homeless people except where you have rent
control, as in New York and San Francisco, or where the city
government has a systematic policy of eliminating housing for
"undesirables", as in San Jose.
James A. donald
On 18 Aug 1997 11:08:29 -0400, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> I'll remind you that when I say "capitalism" I mean
> historical capitalism, not an idealized fantasy.
Historically, the history of actual capitalism has been the history of
mens glorious struggle to be free, the Glorious revolution, the sea
beggars, the union of Ultrecht, the Hanseatic league. Recall the
slogan "city air makes free", for the free cities defended not only
their own freedom, but the freedom of all.
Whereas the history of actual socialism has consisted of a privileged
few systematically ending social mobility with the restoration of
feudalism and slavery. The peasants on the Soviet collective farm
were not free to leave, they were once again bound to the land as
their ancestors had been, and many of the sugar cane workers on Cuban
collective farms were once agains slaves, owned by a particular
plantation, as their fore fathers had been.
You may well argue that the American revolution was merely a struggle
between two brands of capitalism, but this is not so, for what they
were fighting was mercantilism.
> As I said, I don't think you can get a working class without
> violence. As it happens in history, capitalism has often
> had much of the violence done for it in advance. But the
> violence is still necessary.
It seems odd then that for the most part the capitalists were on the
opposite side in that violence.